


He Picked the Wrong One

by beckydawolf



Category: Avengers (Comics), Captain Marvel (Comics), Marvel 3490, Marvel 616, Spider-Woman (Comic)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Bechdel Test Pass, Canon-Typical Violence, Civil War (Marvel), Dimension Travel, Earth-3490, F/F, F/M, Genderswap, Relationship Issues, Women Being Awesome, carolcon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-26
Updated: 2013-11-02
Packaged: 2017-12-21 10:01:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 34,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/899002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beckydawolf/pseuds/beckydawolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Captain Marvel and Spider-Woman are knocked unconscious on a mission, they wake up in a world a lot like their own. In fact, it's almost identical. Except that the Civil War never happened, Jess doesn't seem to exist and their Carol is dead. Oh and then there's Natasha Stark.</p><p>Turns out, slipping between universes might not even be the most complicated part of this mess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In terms of continuity, here's what I have and haven't included:
> 
> Jess has done her angry confrontation in Hawkguy; Carol has her new costume but her brain tumour isn't an issue; although meant to be post AvX, my Avengers line up was written before I'd read Hickman's Avengers so they're who I think of when I think Avengers.
> 
> Hand-wavy, shared universe continuity ftw. Enjoy!

“Could be worse,” says Jess, a bite to her tone. “You could have been seeing – or rather not seeing – Clint.”

There it is, the topic Carol's been waiting for Jess to bring up since they sat down in the little coffee shop close to Carol's apartment. With rain pouring heavily outside, the chalkboard menu behind the counter and deep leather sofas make the place feel cosy as they sip their coffees. So far, they've talked about a lot of things – their friends, work, the latest developments in _Dog Cops_ – the conversation meandering comfortably. She's actually been waiting for Jess to tell her what was going on with Clint since, during a fight last week, Jess seemed to be deliberately avoiding him. Jess, she knows, shares things when she's ready and, when she is, Carol will be a good friend and listen.

“What happened?” she asks.

“Clint Barton happened,” Jess replies bitterly, as she picks at her slice of chocolate cake. “Clint Barton's car crash of a life collided with my car crash of a life. Admittedly, the collision was caused by the other woman he's been sleeping with turning up at the mansion but -”

“He _what_?” exclaims Carol.

“Oh, hadn't you heard? I would've thought everyone had by now.” She shrugs, then continues dryly. “I guess the Avengers rumor mill didn't work so well for once. Whoo, lucky me.”

To Carol, she sounds a little angry, a little sad but mostly resigned to the fact that, once again, her life hasn't gone the way she wanted. It makes Carol feel utterly powerless because, other than being there to listen, she doesn't know how to fix that.

“She turned up at the mansion and kissed him – right there in front of me and Bobbi and Natasha – and all he does is look embarrassed. No apology, no 'I think you must have me confused with someone else' just... _embarrassed_. And when I finally track the bastard down to his apartment – which he made really hard, by the way, and explains why booty calls where always at mine, I didn't even know he _had_ an apartment – turns out he thought it _was just sex_ , we were _just sex_.”

“Oh, _Jess_.” They are only two words but nothing else feels appropriate. Hopefully, Carol's tone conveys all the things she doesn't know quite how to say. How angry and hurt she feels on Jess's behalf. How, no matter how alone Jess might feel right now, she's here for her, even if Clint isn't. How what she's going to say next will suck but she's only doing it because she's her friend and better she says it than someone else.

“Did he – Jess, did he know you thought it was more than sex? Did you tell him that?”

“No but he-” _No but he should have known._ Jess looks glum. “I never said I wanted just sex. That should usually be a clue.”

“I think you're crediting him with far too much emotional intelligence. This is Clint Barton we're talking about.”

“So it's my fault, is it?” Jess snaps, defensively. Clearly, she's caught a nerve. “ _He_ slept with someone else because _I_ didn't anticipate that he could only keep it in his pants if I told him to keep them zipped. Is that what you're saying?”

Carol takes a sip of her coffee and gives Jess a long, steady look over the mug. The anger isn't directed at her, not really. She just happens to be here and Jess can't lash out at the intended recipient without risking even more hurt.

“Feel better?” Carol asks.

“Little bit,” she concedes. “He's in the wrong, I know that, but why do I feel... responsible? ” Then, in the tone of spurned women everywhere, she growls, “Ugh! _Men_.”

“Men,” Carol agrees, echoing the best friends of spurned women everywhere. Then she changes track a little and teases. “I'd offer to dangle him off the tower for you, except I know you can do that yourself. Wouldn't want to cramp your style.”

“Thanks, Carol. Oh, and on the bright side,” Jess says then stands up. She does a little dance on the spot before sitting back down again. Grinning, she takes a mouthful of coffee.

“What was that?” asks Carol, confused.

“Not-Pregnant Victory Dance. To celebrate that the only thing that could've possibly made this situation any worse _hasn't happened_.”

Having caught on, Carol laughs. “You're right. The only thing worse than dysfunctional super-powered relationships are dysfunctional super-powered relationships with _offspring_.”

“ _Super-powered_ offspring.” Jess points out, laughing too.

Carol groans, head lolling back on the sofa. “Oh god! Someone save us fro-”

Their joking is interrupted by the loud, simultaneous beeping of two Avengers communicators. They share a glance.

“You gonna get that?” teases Jess, reaching for hers at the same time as Carol starts rummaging in the pocket of her jeans for her own.

“No, thought I'd let it go to voice mail,” deadpans Carol. She reads the incoming transmission on the device's tiny screen and sighs. “I'm needed at the tower, apparently. You?”

“Same,” Jess replies, holding her communicator aloft. “Fancy giving me a lift?”

“I don't know, Jess.” Carol stands and gulps down the remainder of her coffee. “My mom always said not to give lifts to strange women.”

“No, she didn't,” snorts Jess as she pulls on her jacket.

Carol's clothes ripple slightly and, in the blink of an eye, her jeans and jumper are replaced by her red and blue costume. The few staff and customers of the small coffee shop are a little startled by the sudden change but, at one reassuring smile from Captain Marvel, quickly settle.

“No, you're right. She was more worried about me getting in to cars with strange boys.”

“Little did she know, she should be more worried for the strange boys,” chuckles Jess. She finishes off her drink and, with a last longing look at her half eaten chocolate cake, makes to leave. At Carol's raised eyebrow at her civilian clothes, she says, “I'm going to get soaked out there anyway, I'll change when we get to the tower.”

Outside, they hesitate under the stoop for a moment before Carol scoops Jess up in her arms and takes off, flying head first in to the rain. At the sudden onslaught of bad weather, Jess scrunches up her face in shock. Already, her dark hair is soaked and sticks to her face.

“I want to know, why is it Avengers business only ever happens when I'm in the middle of something?” Carol has to talk directly in to Jess's ear so she can hear her over the wind and rain. Jess's scowl disappears slightly. “Usually something enjoyable, like coffee with you or halfway through the last chapter of my book. Never while doing dishes.”

Jess laughs, the sound stolen away by the wind rushing past them. She tilts her head up to bring her mouth closer to Carol's ear.

“Good first date, never a bad one," says Jess. "This is why Avengers date other Avengers. You get called away together – no one gets offended, you don't have to lie to your date – you're probably meant to be.”

Carol puts the odd look Jess gets at that down to the rain pounding on her face.

Ahead of them stands the Tower, a beacon of light against the dreary sky. Although the building's glass walls are mirrored, it's only lightly and, at this close distance, they can see the silhouettes of the people inside. The greatest number of shadows – in a variety of unusual shapes and sizes – seem to be congregated in the conference room. Based on the number of them, the summons must have gone out to most of the current Avengers; this is serious.

Once she sets them down on the landing pad used by flyers, Jess gives a little shiver. She was right, she is drenched. The way her wet clothes cling to her body is clearly uncomfortable. They head inside, out of the downpour, so Jess can finally change in to her costume. As they do so, the building automatically reads their Avengers ID cards, confirming their identities by cross matching the biometrics stored on the cards with those of the people entering. Jess goes to change whilst Carol heads downstairs to join the rest of the Avengers.

In the conference room, Carol sees there are only a few Avengers left to arrive. In her head, she begins checking off who's present so she can work out who is still missing. The new mutant additions are sat together, not yet familiar enough with the other members of the team to make chit-chat before the meeting begins. Black Widow and Hawkeye are stood together, talking quietly. Despite her earlier assertion that she would leave Clint alone, she rather likes the idea of being responsible for him having an unfortunate accident; no one should get to hurt Jess like that. Dangling over the middle of the conference table is Spider-Man, talking animatedly at – rather than with – Power Man. Mostly, Luke just looks pained. Wolverine is sat with his feet propped on the table, all five foot two of him looking far too relaxed, like he's seen it all before and there is almost nothing left that could phase him. Carol's beginning to know how he feels. Perched on his chair, beside Logan, is Beast. His glasses sit on the end of his nose as he taps away on his tablet, his feet folded under him. He's certainly one of the biggest people in the room but, stood at the far end and taking up half a wall, Hulk is nearly twice his size.

Carol stops counting when Cap and Iron Man walk in. With them comes the last handful of heroes, including Jess, finally wearing her full costume. Not for the first time, Carol considers how much better Jess looks in her skin tight outfit than she does. Carol's loved all of her costumes over the years – the new one especially – and knows she wears them well but Jess... Jess is just something else.

As Steve takes his place at the head of the table, Tony summons a digital map of the world just above it. Spider-Man's head sits somewhere in the region of the Savage Land. Without any prompting, Tony anticipates what Steve is about to say and manipulates the map to illustrate his words. To see them working together, friends again after everything, especially the way the SHRA went down, is something that Carol still can't help feeling good about. Things are always better when they're communicating properly.

“For anyone who hasn't seen the news this afternoon,” Steve addresses the room, managing to make eye contact with everyone as he speaks. “There have been reports world wide of small – by our standards, at least – explosions in major cities. Initially, they were presumed to be cases of domestic terrorism and dealt with by local agencies accordingly. When we hit five different explosions in five different cities on five very different targets, we began to take notice.”

The map now has five red dots flashing in front of them. Tony brings them in close on the first one and continues the explanation.

“Terrorist attacks of this nature – a series of coordinated explosions – usually aim to cause the greatest loss of life but these are a bit different. Tashkent, Uzbekistan, an office building.” The map blurs as it moves on to the next point. “A stadium in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Cologne, Germany, a foot bridge. This is the one that clued us in, a golf course in Calgary – not the club house, the whole damn course. The fifth was a metro station in Santiago, Chile.”

“Whilst there have been casualties, they've all been minimal,” Steve picks up. “All of the targets appear to have been chosen with the intention of causing the greatest damage without harming anyone. The bridge was closed for repairs, the office building was empty, the station hadn't opened yet. The worst has been a rugby team at a school in New Zealand; they were the only people on site.”

“Biggest boom, least blood, you get the idea,” interrupts Tony. Carol wouldn't say he's enjoying this but there is an enthusiasm radiating off him. It's the kind that only appears when he's working on a particularly complex problem. “That's not even the most interesting part. Every single one of the explosions happened _exactly_ 35 minutes apart.”

“Do we know who's behind it yet?” asks Logan.

“And if we do, their motivation or ends?” adds McCoy.

“Not yet,” answers Steve. “We're now up to eight targets, all similar in nature. What we do know is that, whoever they are, they're showing off. Every continent has been hit at least once. They want us to know, they can be anywhere, get anything.”

“Two obvious options,” Tony says. “Either it's a huge, very coordinated group who've preselected all their targets and have enough local knowledge to know when they're going to be vulnerable but empty, and plant explosives. Or it's a small group – could even be one person – with the means and ability to find these targets and eliminate them remotely or to get to them almost instantaneously and do it.”

“Both of those theories have their flaws but neither option is very attractive.”

“You said there's been eight _so far_ ,” states Carol. “How close are we to being able to predict the next one?”

Steve shoots her a subtle smile; she has caught on to where this is going before anyone else.

“We can and we can't,” answers Tony. “Based on the previous attacks, we're now able to predict the most likely targets of the next attack. Unfortunately, we can't narrow it down to any fewer than the three most probable. The difference in the numbers at that point becomes so small as to be negligible. So, the next attack will be in one of three locations.”

“Now we know this,” says Steve. “We can send teams to the possible targets. Our problem is we don't know what we'll find when we get there. Whoever this is, they've got the ability to disrupt security feeds and, as they're mostly deserted, there's no eye witness reports either.”

The predicted targets are all in North America and, with three targets, three teams have to be dispatched. Steve announces that he will go with the Unity Squad to Port-au-Prince – if there's a country in all of North America that could do without more damage to their infrastructure, it's Haiti – while the teams headed to Phoenix and Philadelphia will be lead by Iron Man and Captain Marvel, respectively. Although Tony probably thinks he's being gracious letting Carol have first choice of heroes for her squad, it makes her feel more like a highschooler picking classmates for sports than a seasoned commander selecting who she wants at her back in a fight. In the end, her team consists of Spider-Woman, Falcon, Hulk, Hawkeye (she shoots Jess an apologetic look for that but, as they don't know what is coming, she wants his aim) and Beast.

The remaining active Avengers leave with Tony but, before they do, a wordless conversation – mostly involving head tilts, raised eyebrows and lip quirks – takes place between him and Steve. Carol can't interpret it herself, they're probably the only people who can, but she thinks she can see the sentiment 'come back safe' in there, from both sides. Knowing Steve, there's probably a 'don't do anything stupid' to Tony as well.

Carol pilots her squad on the short flight down to Philadelphia. Somehow, Jess manages to talk to everyone on the plane apart from Clint and avoids making eye contact with him the whole way. Halfway there, Hank slips in to the co-pilot seat next to her.

“You understand, I'm not one to gossip,” Hank says. It's a complete lie but she doesn't contradict him. “So, when I ask this, it's for purely practical reasons. What is the... situation back there?”

He means Clint and Jess, she knows. It's only then that she begins to slightly regret bringing the pair of them on this mission. If it's causing tension on the journey then it could be a problem in the field.

“They'll be fine, I swear.” She flashes Hank her most reassuring smile. His raised eyebrow betrays his scepticism. “Swap seats with Jess, would you? I need a word with her.”

When Jess sits down, Carol realizes that now is a time to be a leader and not her friend.

“Knock it off,” she orders her. Jess just looks confused. “I mean it, Jess, play nice. He hurt you, I know he did, but I wouldn't have brought the two of you if I didn't think you could work together. We don't know what we'll find when we land, you both need to have your head in the game or someone could get hurt. You know this. Don't make me regret bringing you, okay?”

Jess looks slightly pissed that Carol's felt the need to chastise her but she relents. “Yeah, okay. But I'm not forgiving him.”

“Not asking you to.” Then, Carol calls back to the others. “ETA three minutes. Get ready.”

She sets the quinjet down in the park opposite their probable target. The Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul would be a beautiful building, what with its soaring columns, the statues set in the walls between them, and the light blue of its high copper dome contrasting with the pinkish hue of the weathered stone. It _would_ be a beautiful building, were it not for the robots sitting all over it. One is even perched on the cross atop the dome. Looks like they got the target.

They're strange robots, humanoid but unlike anything Carol's seen before. Although they have heads, their faces are flat white expanses of plastic, making it look like they have polished ostrich eggs at the top of their bodies. What really makes them strange is they way they move towards Carol and her team. Whereas most robots have limb and joint movements that mimic the human range – Tony had once said it has something to do with people's comfort with familiar forms – these move as if they can go in any direction. From the way some of them walk on all fours, it seems that they can.

“I know I don't have to say this,” Carol states. “I'm going to say it anyway, though. That's a church. We're here to prevent damage to the city, not cause more. We also don't know where the explosives are hidden. So careful. Don't wreck the place.”

“And the robots?” asks Sam.

“Be my guest,” she grins. “But if we can get one disabled, none of us will need to get Tony a birthday present this year.”

They charge, attacking the robots in their own unique ways. Carol flies up above the cathedral. Under normal circumstances, she would blast a few but, as that risks setting off unknown explosives, she settles for swooping down, grabbing them off the roof one at a time and punching them until they stop moving. Below her, Hulk roars as he tears one in half. Falcon has had a similar idea to Carol but, instead of punching them, he just flies higher then lets gravity do the rest. Of all of them, Beast is the only one who seems to be interested in doing more than destroying them. He's decapitated a couple and is picking through the insides of their heads while fending off incoming attacks with his feet.

It would appear, from the way Jess and Clint are working together, that Jess has heeded her words. Jess appears to be acting as bait, drawing some of the robots after her in a small pack. When they get in his sights, Clint shoots them down. Any he misses – and he doesn't miss many – Jess takes out herself.

“Captain!” That's Hank's voice over the comm in her ear. “They're armed. I repeat, they are armed. Even the wreckage.”

It's just after he says it that the first one explodes in mid-air. Jess, who's just jumped off the top of the dome to repeat the luring and shooting trick, takes the full brunt of the blast. Small chunks of shrapnel shred her costume. One of the limbs smack her in the head. She's not gliding any more, she's falling. Some one shouts, “Spider-Woman!” It's her, it's Carol. She dives. If Jess hits the ground... Air rushes past her face. She's going too fast. She'll have to pull up sharp. Doesn't matter. She has to get Jess. Her hands close around her arm.

The world goes white.

* * *

When Carol comes to, she finds herself on her side, lying on the sidewalk outside the cathedral. Jess is flat on the ground next to her, she's bleeding a little from the shrapnel wounds and there is a gash on her forehead where the robot arm had connected. Carol still has her hands clasped around Jess's arm. Gently, she removes them, then sits up with a groan.

It takes Carol a few moments to realise what it is about this situation that feels wrong. There are so many things wrong that it almost warrants a list. Firstly, none of the rest of the team are anywhere in sight and neither is the quinjet. It's unlike them to disappear at the end of a fight, especially if team members are injured or unconscious. That's the second thing: why was she unconscious? The last thing she remembers is grabbing Jess before the world went white. Thirdly, she knows she didn't have time to pull out of that dive and, at the speed she was going, the impact would have been considerable. Yet, the ground beneath her is unharmed. The final, and perhaps most disturbing part, is that there are no signs of the fight whatsoever. There's no debris, no robot parts, nothing. The slightly overcast weather hasn't changed and the digital clock on the side of a nearby building shows the right date. They landed 20 minutes ago. In fact, the only abnormal thing about where she is would be the two superheroes lying on the concrete.

“Jess. Jess, wake up.” She gives her a little shake. “Jess, you with me?”

Jess makes a pained mewling noise. It's the same one she makes when she drops off watching a film and Carol has to rouse her. Carol finds it a little reassuring, hearing it in the middle of... whatever the hell this is.

“I think something happened, Jess.”

Without opening her eyes, Jess says, “Yeah, freaking robot blew up in my face.”

“Something else.” At that, Jess does open her eyes. She blinks several times at the sudden brightness of the light, then props herself up on her elbows. “Hey, where did the robots go?”

“That's what I want to know.” It suddenly occurs to Carol that now would be a good time to call for help. She taps the comm in her ear. “Captain Marvel to Avengers Tower.” No response. “Captain Marvel to Unity Squad.” Still nothing. “Captain Marvel to Iron Man's team.” More silence, not even static. She pulls it out of her ear. “I think it must have gotten damaged in the fight. Come on, let's get back. We're only in Philly, I can fly us from here.”

She stands, then offers Jess a hand up. As she takes it, Jess says, “What are we doing in Philly?”

“We were sent here,” Carol frowns. “One of the predicted targets. You remember, right?”

“Right, right. Yeah, of course.” Jess waves a hand dismissively. Were it not for her injuries, a memory gap like that would have Carol running for the Skrull detector.

“You okay?” Carol asks. Now she looks a little closer, she can see that Jess's eyes are a little glassy and she's swaying like a drunk.

“Yep. Home. Let's go.”

Sighing slightly, Carol lifts Jess up bridal-style and takes off. She has to be careful on the flight back; she can't go as high as she normally would, otherwise the air will get too thin for Jess to breathe. As Jess might have a possible head injury, Carol also goes a little slower too. Her instincts want her to fly faster, to get Jess to safety as quickly as possible, but the rational part of her brain intervenes. With her healing factor, Jess is a little tougher than most but going fast might aggravate any injuries she has.

The flight takes a little over half an hour, Jess's nose in the crook of Carol's neck the whole way. Were it not for the strange circumstances they have found themselves in, Carol might enjoy the warm breath against her skin; she deliberately avoids thinking about that. Somewhere over Jersey, they encounter the bad weather from earlier. She keeps flying as Jess gets soaked in her arms for the second time that day.

When she touches down on the landing pad, Carol's intention is to just carry Jess inside and find someone to look her over. Jess, however, starts grumbling. Carol catches something about not being a baby and that she's fine, really. Against her better opinion, she sets her on her feet once they're inside. They stop by the kitchen on their way down so they can check in with the others; heroes get hungry after fights, that's the most likely place to find the rest of her team.

“ _Carol_ ,” a voice off to her left breathes, lacing her name with pain and disbelief. “Carol?”

“Yeah?” She looks around for the source of the voice in the otherwise empty kitchen. It belongs to Steve, who is wearing a t-shirt and sweats – when did he have time to change out of his costume? – and an expression of confusion and anger. His half made sandwich sits abandoned on the counter next to him, all of his attention now focused on her.

“How was Haiti?” Carol asks, when he doesn't say anything. “Turns out Philly was the target after all. I'll give you a full debrief later. Did my team get back okay? Jess got tagged in the fight, she could do with Hank or Stephen looking her over.”

“I'm fine,” Jess mutters.

“Everyone got back fine,” Steve finally says. “Everyone except you. I carried your body back myself. So whoever – or whatever – you are, I'd appreciate it if you stop wearing my friend's face.”

The words themselves might be polite but the tone is threatening. He shifts in to a battle stance and, although he doesn't have his shield with him, Carol knows it would be a close fight, even with her strength. When she fought with Iron Man's forces, she learnt she couldn't bring herself to hurt Steve, not really.

“Steve,” a woman's voice comes out of a speaker set in the ceiling. “Stand down, soldier. It's her. The 'Once an Avenger, Always an Avenger' Protocol engaged the moment she touched down. It checked her against her ID card and it's almost certainly her.” The same voice then comes from the doorway behind them. “As for who the beaten-up Tresemmé model is, I have no idea. But she does have a valid card too, even if neither of them show SHRA data. Have you been recruiting behind my back again, Steven, you know how much I hate that.”

The woman the voice belongs to is maybe half a head or so shorter than her and Jess. Her hair's very nearly as dark as Jess's but, unless she tints her eyebrows, naturally so. It's wavy too, only just long enough to brush the collar of her white t-shirt; a practical cut for a practical woman, Carol deduces from the way her overalls are tied at her waist.

“You know I'd never do anything behind _your_ back,” Steve says, a tightness to his voice, that makes the woman's sharp blue eyes narrow slightly. Then, he carries on, more matter of factly. “No SHRA data? Are you sure the program isn't wrong?”

“Please,” she snorts. “My programs are never wrong.”

“Really? Never wrong, huh?” There's the tightness again. He points at Jess. “Who is she?”

“According to her ID, she's Spider-Woman but, since I know Julia Carpenter is still in Canada, she's not any Spider-Woman we know. They're unregistered so there's no civilian names on their cards.”

The same feeling from earlier, the feeling of something being very wrong with this situation, resurfaces deep in Carol's gut. This woman is talking about registration, Steve thinks she's dead and they don't recognise Jess. There is definitely something wrong here.

“I'm sorry,” Carol interrupts them, turning to the woman. “But who are _you_?”

“Do I really look that different? Everyone says the new hair cut...” She trails off at Carol's hard expression, frowning. “You really don't know me at all do you? Huh. So, I'm thinking, either memory wipe or you're not our Carol after all?”

“That's the feeling I'm beginning to get.” Carol crosses her arms in front of her. “Tell me, who are you?”

“Tasha,” she says with a smile. When neither Carol or Jess display any recognition, she exchanges a glance with Steve. With more seriousness, she says, “Natasha Maria Stark. I am Iron Man.”

Carol exchanges her own look with Jess, whose eyes have gone wide in surprise, before looking back at Steve and Tasha.

“I think,” she begins carefully. “That I'm not your Carol and we are a long way from home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been working on this for a little while and, when I heard about Carol Con, I realised this would be the perfect time to post the first chapter.
> 
> Enjoy and feedback is always welcome!


	2. Chapter 2

The four of them look at each other for a moment, unsure how to proceed, until Jess makes a small pained noise. Carol focuses all her attention on Jess, worried despite Jess's many reassurances that she's fine.

“Bit of a headache, nothing worse,” Jess assures her. The rain has washed away a lot of the blood from Jess's cuts, although there are patches of darker red all over her costume. Some of the smaller scrapes have already healed but, almost hidden by her damp hair, the one on her head has started to visibly swell.

“We've got a lot to talk about,” Carol tells Steve and Tasha. “A lot to figure out, too and I'm willing to cooperate in any way possible, believe me. First though, someone needs to look her over. She got hit pretty hard in the head, I'm concerned she might be concussed.”

“Of course,” says Steve. He looks concerned, worried for Jess's health despite not knowing her. “I know there were a couple of appointments this afternoon, Dr McCoy should be downstairs in medical.”

“Seriously, Carol? It's just a few cuts, I've had so much worse, you know I have,” complains Jess. Carol just gives her the do-not-mess-with-me face, the one she usually reserves for people who call her 'lady' or 'sweetheart'. “I don't have a concussion.”

* * *

“You have a concussion,” Dr McCoy tells Jess. Carol, who is sat next to Jess's bed in the Avenger's clinic, tries not to look a little triumphant. She's not trying very hard. Jess scowls.

“Shut up,” Jess orders her.

“I didn't say anything,” retorts Carol.

“You were going to. You were going to say 'I told you so'.”

“No, I wasn't!”

“You were thinking it, then.”

“Little bit.” Carol smirks, not even trying to be the bigger person.

The sound of a throat being cleared interrupts their affectionate bickering. The throat in question belongs to Dr McCoy – and isn't that an interesting beast. Or, rather, an interesting Beast.

Steve and Tasha insisted on accompanying them down to the clinic. Initially, Steve tried to pass it off as hospitality and that it would be only polite to show them the way. Of course, Stark then gave up on any veneer of respectability by telling them that, no matter who Carol might look like, she wasn't stupid enough to let two strangers run around her building unsupervised. Carol doesn't blame them; she would probably wouldn't trust them either.

“Penny?” Steve said as they entered the clinic. “Possible head injury from a fight. You free to take a look?”

“For you Cap, of course,” Penny replied, with a warm smile.

Penny, as it turned out, is Dr McCoy. It's the final thing to convince Carol that, wherever it is they have wound up, it's not safe to assume it's at all like home, no matter how similar it may feel. She's a huge woman, several inches taller than Steve and broader too. Oddly, she has a habit of holding her large blue arms pressed in tight to to her body. She does it with her legs too, keeping them straight beneath her rather than crouching down, which looks like it would be far more comfortable. It's as if she's trying to take up as little space as possible. Underneath her labcoat, she wears a floral print sundress. The little white flowers on the yellow fabric and the vintage cut of the dress both help to accentuate the femininity of her large frame. When she moves, it becomes clear, from the way they ripple under her fur, that all of her size is muscle.

Although she didn't stare when she met Dr McCoy, Carol did do a small double take. From the steely way Tasha glared at her – as though daring her to say something – she was seen. To her credit, McCoy only blinked when she saw Carol, a woman supposed to be dead, walk through her door. She took Carol and Jess off to an examination room, leaving Tasha and Steve to wait outside.

“I've dressed the worst of your wounds,” Penny tells Jess, now that she has their attention again. She's very softly-spoken, just loud enough to be heard but, if anyone tried to talk over her, her voice could be easily lost. “They're mostly healing up nicely on their own. You have a healing factor don't you?” Jess nods. “From the rate of cell regeneration, it's reasonable to assume the head injury will affect you for no longer than an hour. My recommendation would be some paracetamol for the headache and to avoid circumstances where you're likely to get hit in the head again.”

For all her soft words, there's a playful twinkle to those golden eyes. Had McCoy not taken off her glasses, Carol might have missed it.

“Drugs won't do much but thanks, Doc,” says Jess. Then, she looks at Carol, a touch perturbed. “Happy now? I'm fine, you can stop worrying about me and we can start worrying about where we are.”

“On that subject, Ms Stark and Captain Rogers are hovering outside,” Penny informs them. “I believe they would like a word.”

They're ushered in and stand on the other side of Jess's bed, while Dr McCoy positions herself at the end of it. Although she claims it's so she can continue to monitor her patient, Carol suspects it has more to do with her own curiosity. It's going to make her next question a lot easier actually.

“I want to check one thing.” Carol is first to speak. “Do any of you know a Tony Stark or a Hank McCoy?”

Steve looks between the present Stark and McCoy who both shake their heads, looking slightly confused.

“No, I don't think we do,” he says.

“No relations? Big brothers? Nothing like that?”

“Only child,” says Stark. “Same as Penny.”

Jess thumps her head back against the pillow. “We woke up in a world where Hank and Tony have boobs, didn't we?”

“Wait, I'm a guy in your world?” Stark cocks an eyebrow salaciously at that. “Am I hot?”

The look Steve gives her is so stern it makes Carol, who's never been easily intimidated, uncomfortable. Stark however, doesn't seem the least bit cowed by it. If anything, it makes her more provocative, like he's given her an excuse to push some buttons.

“Oh, please,” she snorts derisively. “I could do it with a version of myself, if I wanted. It's practicality masturbation. Or is that on your list of things I'm not allowed to do any more, too?”

The two of them are glowering at each other, wordlessly daring the other to say something else. It's not only Carol who is uncomfortable now. Jess shoots her a quizzical look while McCoy is quite pointedly looking at her paws.

“That's our working theory, right?” interrupts Carol. Both of them look over at her a little surprised, obviously so caught in the moment they have temporarily forgotten the situation. “That we've slipped between dimensions – or realities or universes, whatever the correct term is – because I'm definitely not your Carol. So, the most obvious questions: how did we get here and how do we get home?”

“If that's what we're looking at, then Reed's going to be the best person to talk to,” posits Steve. “We can head over to the Baxter Building as soon as you're ready.”

“Or we can stay here and I can tell you whether he knows anything,” Stark suggests, leaning back against the wall. “He usually only _thinks_ he does but, as I know for a fact he has systems set up to monitor for gaps between realities, we should know where you came through and how to send you back in – oh, I don't know – the next five minutes.”

She looks incredibly pleased with herself. Steve, however does not.

“And you got this, how?” he asks.

“Ms Pryde's been hacking in to his systems – with my help of course, she's good but she's not that good – since I realized that we were looking at a case of cross-universe travel.”

“It's completely unethical to ask one of your employees to do that and you know it. Why couldn't you just ask him?”

“He mansplained to me last week. I'm proving a point.” She says it like committing corporate espionage is a legitimate – and very obvious – form of revenge. From the way he clenches his jaw, Steve has something he would dearly like to say about that.

“Ms Stark?” A young woman's voice comes from outside the examination room.

“In here, Kitty,” Stark calls. She looks a little confused when the young woman, dressed in business attire, walks through the wall. “You're finished already? I thought I had to write the final algorithm to trawl through his data structures?”

“No, I did it myself. They're a little obscure but nothing I couldn't handle.”

“I knew there was a reason I pay you an obscene amount of money. What did you find me?”

“Nothing at all. There's been no dimensional travel registered at any point in the last forty-eight hours.” Stark goes to speak but Kitty cuts her off. “And yes, I double checked. I even went in to the registries and looked for deleted data. There's nothing, sorry.” She sounds genuinely remorseful.

“Looks like we better get over to the Baxter Building, after all,” says Steve. Stark looks peeved.

Carol looks over at Jess. “Ready to go?” she asks.

“Actually,” says Jess. “I think I've got worse. My head _really_ hurts, I should probably stay here.”

“What? But I thought you said you were fi-”

“No, I feel really bad. Absolutely horrible. I don't even know if I can stand up.” Jess is giving her a pointed look; she's up to something. “I should stay here and rest, shouldn't I, Doc?”

“If you feel as though your condition hasn't improved, then certainly,” replies McCoy. Stark frowns at that, clearly not comfortable at the idea of having Jess left on her own. “I'll keep an eye on her,” the doctor reassures her.

As Carol leaves with Steve and Tasha, she hears Jess talking to Dr McCoy.

“If I'm going to be here for a while, any chance of something to read?” she asks.

“Of course. What would you like? I have some Dostoyevsky. Or maybe the poems of William Blake? I'd recommend _The Fault in Our Stars_ if you've not yet read it.”

“Not sure I'm up to anything so highbrow. How about some of those magazines from the waiting room?”

Carol glances down at them as she walks past. They're predominantly gossip rags. Why would Jess choose to stay and read those, rather than come with them to find out how the two of them got here? Definitely up to something.

* * *

“Oh, hello Captain,” says Reed. “I was under the impression you were dead.”

“She is,” Stark informs him, flopping down in a free seat. Carol and Steve remain standing in the middle of the room. “This one's not ours.”

Richards, as Carol expected, was buried in his work when they arrived. He glanced up briefly when they walked in to his lab but then returned to whatever it was he examining on his workbench – it looked like some kind of striped frog. Even when Steve thanked him for making time to see them, he only waved a hand dismissively. However, Stark's words seemed to garner his full attention.

“Tell me what happened.” He is all business but clearly intrigued.

So Carol explains. She tells them everything; from the call to assemble and the series of explosions worldwide, right up to discovering the different Stark and McCoy. She leaves out Jess's subterfuge – she's not sure about that herself – but almost nothing else. Any detail, she knows, could be key to figuring this out and getting them home.

“Doesn't sound too complicated. Simple case of accidental inter-dimensional travel.” He walks over to a bank of computer screens and begins tapping away. From her seat, Stark shoots Carol a knowing smirk. “My monitoring systems should have a record of it. Here we are, this looks like-” He stops, then turns to them in confusion. “Tasha, why is there a gif of the Iron Man armor making explicit movements on my computer?”

“I think you'll find it's the Bad Touch dance. And I'm sure I have no idea.” She looks very smug. “So, nothing? No data about how they got here? Wow, what a shock.”

Once again, Steve looks like he wants to chastise her and is having to work hard not to.

In order to head off another uncomfortable situation, Carol asks, “Is there any way to send us home?”

“Not without finding out where you came from. If I don't know that, you could end up anywhere. All is not lost, mind you. Just because the automatic system didn't pick up on anything doesn't mean there's nothing to find. I can do a more targeted scan of the area you arrived in but it'll take a few minutes.”

“That would be my cue to offer you coffee, then,” Sue enters the lab, tray in hand. She sets it down on an empty workbench and begins pouring out five mugs.

“I was just about to offer them,” says Reed.

“Of course you were, dear.” She sounds affectionate. Behind her back, Stark does an exaggerated eye roll. “Carol, it's good to see you.”

She says it with such friendliness and warmth that Carol feels slightly guilty to have to tell her that she's not the one they lost.

“Doesn't matter,” Sue tells her. The coffee she hands her is cream, no sugar; exactly the way Carol takes it. “It's always good to see an old face. I hope we can help you with what you need.”

Steve takes his coffee from Sue with a warm smile and a brief nod of thanks. Sue calls out that Reed's is made and, barely looking up from his work, he reaches over to the tray on the other side of the room. When she gives Stark her drink, Sue's warm hospitality melts away.

“Natasha.” Her tone is frosty.

“Susan.” She sounds equally cool.

Their moment of passive aggressive hostility is interrupted by Reed's extended “ _Oh_ ” of understanding.

“Have you got something?” asks Steve.

“I certainly know why my systems couldn't pick them up before,” he tells them, frowning at his screens.

“Why?” Carol prompts when he doesn't explain further.

“Almost entirely because they weren't looking for you.” He swivels around to address the room. “When we talk about tears in the fabric of reality, that's often quite accurate; moving between dimensions can be a messy business. Commonly you wind up with a lot of by-products – radiation, heat, subatomic particles – travelling in both directions. My detection system doesn't look for the tear itself, there would be no way to account for the infinite number of possibilities that would appear on the other side, so instead it monitors for the characteristic flow of the waste products. It's this extraneous data that would usually allow us to make judgements about the nature of the opening and it's destination. In this case – and this is what makes it truly fascinating – there is none. Or there is, but there's so little, it's practicality meaningless.”

“So what are you saying?” asks Steve. “You couldn't detect it because there was no hole that brought them here?”

“Not at all,” replies Reed. “There was definitely a hole and they're definitely here.”

“What he's saying,” Stark says, hopping to her feet and walking over to a desk in one corner of the lab. “Is that their hole was weird.” She picks up a piece of paper, a pencil and a hole punch. Holding up the paper, she drives the pencil through it point first. It leaves a hole with jagged edges. “This is what Reed looks for normally.” The hole punch then makes a neat little circle in the sheet. “And this is what our guests came through. See the difference?”

“The hole isn't still there, is it?” raises Carol.

“No, and in fact, yours is even harder to detect now than a normal one would be after it closes.” Reed goes to join Stark and the rest of them follow him over. He picks up a roll of tape, rips off two pieces, then puts the first over the tear, pushing the rough edges together. That done, he finds the discarded circle of paper, replaces it and applies the second piece of tape. “The different types of holes are even different when they've closed up. Now I know what it looks like, I could find it again but I don't yet know how to extrapolate any other data from it. Including where you came from. Leave it with me and I'll see what I can do.”

“Am I the only one,” asks Sue. “Who looks at that and sees a deliberate act?”

“What do you mean?” questions Steve, looking as confused as Carol feels.

“I've been doing this job long enough to know that, accidental tears between worlds, they're easy enough to achieve. There have been points when our kids seem to do it every other week. I know you can tear something on purpose but it's far more likely to be an accident, isn't it? By that logic, a hole is more likely to be intentional than happen by some mishap.”

“That would make a lot of sense,” agrees Reed. “You could even extend it further and say it was premeditated. Whereas a case of accidental dimensional travel could have any destination, an intentional one could be predetermined.”

“Wait,” butts in Carol. “Are you saying someone _sent_ us here?”

“Or brought you. This is purely hypothetical, of course.”

“Of course,” Stark muses. “Carol, what were the working theories about the explosions in your world?”

“They were flaunting their abilities. Steve and Tony believed it was either a large, organized group, or a small one capable of being anywhere...” She trails off, realization dawning.

Tasha has realized the same thing. “Reed – hypothetically, of course – could these holes take you to anywhere in a world, somewhere different geographically from where you started from?”

“I don't see why not. That's actually very common in dimensional travel.”

“If I'm following this correctly,” interrupts Steve. “You're saying that, whoever was responsible for the explosions in the world Carol and her friend came from, they brought the pair of them here. They punched holes between worlds then used them to travel around and show off their power. Alright, I buy it but why? Why did they want your attention and why send you to us?”

“You're assuming the perpetrator comes from their world and not ours,” Sue reminds him. “Maybe there's something about the two worlds that would help explain it. Carol, have you noticed anything very different since you arrived?”

“One or two things spring to mind,” she says, glancing at Stark.

“Anything that might help?”

“Not that I can think of but we haven't even been here a day yet. I'd need more time to look around, do some research.”

“This is fascinating enough that I'll keep working on it anyway but it could take me some time before I can send you home,” Reed tells them. “I should warn you, I'll do my best, but there might not be enough data for it. My suggestion would be investigate, see if you can't find the person responsible. I'd be very interested to meet whoever it is could travel this neatly, if you do. Right now, that's probably your best chance of getting home.”

* * *

“Let me get this straight,” says Jess, disbelievingly, once Carol's done recounting the visit to the Baxter Building. “You're telling me someone brought us here – here, by the way, being another universe – _on purpose_? And, in order to figure out the how so we can go home, we have to first figure out the why?”

“That's pretty much it, yeah.”

Jess gives her a exasperated look then sighs. “Do you ever look around at all the crazy stuff that happens to us and just think, how is this our lives?”

“Probably far more often than is healthy,” Carol admits.

They are both sat on one of the beds in the room Stark has given them. It feels more like a hotel room than a room in someone's home; Stark still doesn't exactly trust them so, Carol supposes, that's the point. It has two identical beds but they're sat on the one Jess has claimed. When she returned to the tower, they asked for two things; a Stark Pad, so they can do some research, and some clean clothes. Both were provided, along with an invitation from Steve to use whatever they wanted in the communal areas of the building. Stark had grudgingly agreed to that but still gave them the spartan room. Now, they're showered, changed and Carol has gotten Jess caught up.

“Looks like it's a good thing I stayed behind to do research,” Jess says.

“What? You were reading gossip rags. How is that research?”

“You remember when I got back? After the skrulls?” There's that familiar pang of guilt, the one Carol feels every time she remembers that she didn't even know her best friend was missing. “Once I was done beating the crap out of everything green, chinned and shape-shifty, I realized, I'd been gone so long, I missed a lot. The popular press can be an excellent barometer of public opinion on certain things. I figured I'd skip the bit where I sit there looking confused as Richards talks – you could do that – and I'd work out what kind of world we rocked up in.”

“What did you learn?” Carol shifts to a more comfortable position, legs crossed in front of her.

“In most regards, identical to ours. It's working it's way to wider acceptance of gay people, New York and a lot of other states have equal marriage, the President – they have Obama too, by the way – has come out in favor of it. Pretty much all the same shitty double standards for women as we have. You know, be sexy but don't have sex, you're either a mother or a whore, there is no middle ground. I get the feeling their economic recession isn't so bad but I'm not an expert.”

Jess repositions herself, tucking her legs underneath her, before she continues. “Where the real differences are is the capes. The registration act, it would appear, passed here without any problems. Folks love any kind of costumed hero, they're fascinated by us. They even love the unregistered ones, although that seems to be more of a guilty pleasure kind of thing. You thought the press liked to write about us, you should see how _much_ they write about these people. If their identity is public, every detail of their private lives is picked over in minute detail. Seriously, today I learnt what kind of muesli Wonder Man prefers. I never needed to know that _ever_.

But the two people with more column inches dedicated to them than any other would be the Avengers power couple, Natasha Stark and her husband Steve Rogers.”

“Wait, _what_?” If she had a drink, Carol would have spat it out. “Jess, I've been around them pretty much since we got here. How can they be married? They don't even seem to like each other.”

“General consensus seems to be that there's trouble in paradise. She's been to a few events recently without him and you know how the press picks up on stuff like that. Anyone close to them has stayed tight lipped, though, so it's mostly just a lot of speculation. I've seen everything from that he's dying of some horrible disease even his spectacular body can't fight, right the way through to he was never recovered from the ice, he's been a series of LMDs all along and they're running out of them so are rationing his appearances.” She takes in Carol's baffled expression. “Yeah, I know, nuts. I swear, Stasha is bigger than Brangelina.”

“We need a list,” Carol declares.

“We don't need a list, you know I hate lists. Can't we just make notes on the back of a napkin?”

“We're making a list.”

“Fine. What are we listing?” She grabs the Stark Pad off the covers next to them.

“Everything we know that's different. Something tells me we do that, we might find some clue as to why we're here.”

They spend the next hour collecting together what they know. In the end, their list becomes more of a mind map, one piece of information branching off of another. Mostly, they just find that they have a lot of dead ends and questions. Some of them they can partially answer from online research but, for most of them, they're going to need to ask people in the know. From her obituary, they know when Carol died but, other than a few vague details, not how. They find that Stark was publicly connected to Johnny Storm for a time which could account for some, but not all, of Sue's animosity. There's almost no record of Dr Penny McCoy online. They find a very tiny article about the revocation of Hank Pym's SHRA licence and subsequent incarceration but it doesn't go in to detail. Bill Foster, it turns out, is alive and well, and working as a researcher in California; Carol's pleased about that.

“What about the Skrull Invasion?” asks Jess. “Is there any record of that?”

“Not that I can find,” responds Carol. “Add that to the list of things to investigate.”

“I hate your lists.”

“No, you don't.”

“Alright, here's one for the list: Why did Stark wear her armor to her wedding? And, while we're on the subject, why does she refer to herself as 'Iron Man' but all the tabloids call her 'Iron Woman'?”

“You think that's important?”

“No, I just really want to know,” Jess grins. Carol rolls her eyes, fondly. “You think Cap was serious about giving us free reign of the communal areas?”

“As it's Cap, I'd say yes. Not sure Stark is that keen on it. Why?”

“I haven't eaten since the since breakfast. Shall we find some food?”

“You had ate when we got coffee.”

“That was chocolate cake. Chocolate cake doesn't count.”

Jess climbs off the bed and stretches her arms high above her head. As she does so, her shirt rides up, showing off her midriff. The pale flesh there is taught, muscles lightly visible beneath the skin. Carol thinks, if she were to touch it, the skin would be soft but underneath it would be firm. She looks away.

“You coming?” Jess asks, already halfway to the door.

They take the elevator up to the kitchen. On the way up, in part to distract herself from thinking about Jess's stomach, Carol teases her about the amount she eats. If she were anyone else, it might be considered cruel or bitchy but it's Carol; they've shared enough cartons of ice-cream for Jess to know she's not serious. Technically, Carol eats more than she does but it's Jess who seems to spend more time thinking about food and gains more enjoyment from it. So Carol ribs her, telling her she doesn't know where Jess puts it all. Jess just laughs and suggests that maybe it's her secret superpower.

The elevator doors open and they walk out in to the kitchen. A fair-haired man is stood in front of the microwave. He reaches in and pulls out a steaming bowl. Initially, Carol assumes the bowl is the same creamy color inside and out, until she realizes its contents have boiled over.

“Aw, soup, no.”

When she hears Clint's voice, Jess tenses up beside her. Instinctively, Carol takes her hand and gives it a reassuring squeeze. She relaxes and squeezes back, gratefully, before letting go.

As he turns around to set his food down, Clint notices the two of them standing there. He doesn't look shocked – he must have been warned about Carol – but, from the way he rubs the back of his neck, he does seem a little awkward, not quite sure what to say to her. His eyes slide across to Jess and Carol feels a little surge of protectiveness.

“Hit on me, Barton, and I will blast your ass through a wall,” says Jess, firmly. “We clear?”

“Yes, ma'am,” he replies, slightly surprised. “Wait, you're not psychic are you? I thought you were a Spidey knock-off.”

“No, I'm not a- Why does everyone think that?”

“It's the name, Jess,” Carol reminds her. Gesturing to Clint's soup, she asks, “Smells good, there any more of that?”

“Should be some in the fridge. Word of advice, it shouldn't need more than a couple of minutes. Oh, hey Cap.”

“Clint.” Steve nods in greeting, before turning to Carol. Jess has already started rummaging in the fridge. “Did you find everything okay? Let us know if you need anything.”

“Actually,” Carol says. “Is there any chance of a chat with you and Tasha tonight? We've hit a bit of a block with our research we think you can help us with.”

Steve looks apologetic. “We have plans tonight, I'm afraid.”

“Penguin-suit plans?” pipes up Clint, from where he's eating his soup at the breakfast counter.

“Yes, penguin-suit plans.” He sounds resigned. “If it can wait until tomorrow morning, we'll do it then. Come up to the penthouse about nine. Think you'll be alright 'til then?”

“Should be,” says Jess, munching on a stick of celery.

“I know you're a different Carol,” says Clint. “But you should go see Mike. Might cheer him up.”

“ _Clint_.” Both Steve's face and tone are stony. “A word. Outside. Now.”

As Clint follows him out, Jess and Carol exchange a look of confusion. Had Steve not reacted like that, Carol could have dismissed Clint's suggestion as another of this world's small differences. Now, she really wants to know who Mike is and why Cap doesn't want her seeing him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter can be found in the end notes.

“Carol. _Psst_ , Carol. You awake?”

“Go to sleep, Jess.”

“But I found something.”

“Can't it wait 'til morning?”

“Yes but I'm awake now.”

“I swear, if you don't go to sleep, I will confiscate that tablet.”

“ _Please_.” She draws out the word.

Carol turns over to look at her in the dark. “Fine. But I am not bringing you coffee when you can't drag your butt out of bed tomorrow morning.” She shuffles over to give Jess room to sit on her bed. “So, what's so exciting?”

Holding up the Stark Pad, she plonks down next to her. “Photos from the party Stasha -”

“Please don't call them that.”

“- were at tonight. Don't they look sweet?”

Jess flicks through a series of tabloid pictures. The man in them is definitely Steve. His tux, with the way it shows off his broad shoulders and narrow hips, makes him look even more dashing than usual. Were it not for those sharp blue eyes, the slender woman on his arm could be a completely different person to the one they met earlier that day. Actually, that's wrong, she's not on his arm at all. The two of them are holding hands in the shots, equals side-by-side, for all the world to see. She does look very different, though. All of the natural waves in her dark hair have been straightened away and then replaced by artificially even ones. Around her neck is a magnificent piece of jewellery; Carol assumes it's diamond and worth more than everything she owns. Her face is flawless, from her almost geometrically shaped brows to her sharply highlighted cheek bones, right down to her perfect cupids bow. Gone are her comfy looking overalls, replaced by a beautifully understated gown. The caption on some of the pictures tell Carol it's a Van Dyne bespoke piece. For some reason, she was expecting Stark's dress to be something ostentatious in gold or red but instead it's midnight blue, with an open back and a cowl neck so deep that she's had to forgo any kind of bra. Carol has always secretly hated women with a small enough bust to wear something like that.

“And then there's this,” says Jess, pulling up another image.

“Ah!” Carol shrieks, then firmly looks anywhere but at the tablet's screen. “What the hell is that, Jess?”

“Tasha's Playboy shoot. Do you see it?”

“I certainly saw them, they were right there in front of me. What is wrong with you?”

“No, Carol you're not looking.” Jess tries to push the Stark Pad under Carol's nose but she jerks her head away.

“No, I'm really not. It's gonna be hard enough to look her in the eye tomorrow after one look, I don't need another.”

Jess sits back then fixes her with a steady look. “Will you please just look?”

With an exasperated sigh, Carol takes the tablet. As it's Playboy, most of the photos are more suggestive than explicit but that still doesn't detract from the fact that Tasha is mostly naked in all of them. Some of them play up on the idea of her as an engineer – in the most basic way possible, of course – leaning over a sports car in heels, lingerie and tool belt. Others paint her as a businesswoman; in one picture she sits cross-legged wearing only a garter belt, shirt collar and black tie, the computer in her lap the only thing leaving anything to the imagination. She looks sexy, in a way, but it's more sensual and seductive – all slightly parted lips and hooded eyes – than the elegant sexiness of the woman in the gown holding her husband's hand. The thing that stands out in the Playboy shoot is, unsurprisingly, her naked breasts but not for the reason Carol would expect. They are scarred, and slightly misshapen because of it. Set between them is a vertical surgery scar. In the photos from earlier in the evening, the deep neck of the dress shows off her perfect, unblemished breasts. Make-up could hide the scars but nothing could conceal that level of shrapnel damage.

“Scar tissue,” says Jess, pointing to a Playboy shot.

“No scar tissue.” Carol flicks to one of the more recent photos. “You think that's what they're fighting about?”

“Why would they be fighting about her having perfect boobs?”

“No, but they might be about how she got them.”

Jess raises an eyebrow at her. “Carol, honey, I grew up in terrorist facility, cut off from a lot of the world, but even _I_ know that puberty -”

“When Tony got Extremis,” interrupts Carol. “It fixed a lot of the things that were wrong with his body. Steve's never liked it, thought it made him less human.”

“And you know this how?”

“Because Steve and I do this thing where we go punch things 'til one of us caves and tells the other what's bothering them. My point is, Tony did what he thought was necessary, didn't tell anyone, just got on and did it, like he always does. If Tasha did the same thing when they were _together_...”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

They lapse in to silence for a moment, considering that.

“What did you make of McCoy?” asks Jess, changing track slightly. “I mean, you know Hank better than me, don't you?”

“I guess, why?”

“I dunno, I've been thinking about it and she just seems a lot less...bombastic -”

“Nice word choice.”

“- thanks – a lot less bombastic than the McCoy we know.”

Carol ponders that a little. “Let me sleep on it,” she says eventually. “I'll see what I come up with in the morning. Now get off my bed.”

When Jess doesn't move quickly enough, Carol gives her a playful shove. In retaliation, Jess grabs one of the pillows and knocks her sideways.

“Really?” Carol's voice is disbelieving. “A pillow fight? What are you, twelve?”

Jess just grins and scrambles over to her own bed before Carol has a chance to hit her back. Instead, she throws a pillow at Jess, which hits her with a satisfying thud.

“Goodnight, Jess.”

“You know, I never got to go to slumber parties. We could -”

“ _Goodnight, Jess_.”

* * *

Unsurprisingly, Carol does have to drag Jess's butt out of bed the following morning. She even brings her coffee because she is an excellent friend who has no desire to deal with a cranky Jess, thank you very much. When Carol takes the steaming mug to her, she's still fast asleep, dark hair spread over the pillows and her own face. She looks so peaceful, Carol's loathed to wake her, but they have things to do so she sets the drink on the nightstand then perches on the bed next to her.

“Jess.” She gives her a little shake. “Time to get up.”

Instead of waking, Jess makes a sleepy little sound and snakes her arms around Carol's waist, curling her body against her. Without thinking, she reaches down and gently brushes the strands out of Jess's eyes. Clearly roused by the motion, Jess begins to stir. It's not until those green eyes blink open that Carol realizes her fingers are still moving through Jess's dark hair. She pulls her hand away then stands up, putting distance between her and the bed.

“There's coffee.” She gestures to the nightstand.

“Thought you weren't gonna bring me any?” Jess says, sitting up and rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“I didn't, it was the coffee fairy.”

Jess takes a sip and then those green eyes hold hers. “Well, tell the coffee fairy I said thanks.”

Carol is first to look away.

After that, it doesn't take them long to get ready. They have to negotiate who goes in the bathroom when and which item of clothing fits who, of course. It's all a bit domestic, which is in no way responsible for warm feeling Carol has in the pit of her stomach. That's probably just hunger.

They take the elevator up to to the penthouse. It doesn't open directly in to the apartment, instead they arrive in a small atrium. Opposite them is a large double door and behind that are raised voices.

Carol starts forward, ready to offer assistance, but Jess grabs her arm. Then, Jess climbs up the wall behind them, goes across the ceiling and positions herself just above the door. Looking back at Carol, she beckons her up, with one finger over her lips to stay quiet. Carol flies up and, once she joins her, she realizes what they're doing. Sound from the room travels through the crack between the door and frame, making it the best spot to eavesdrop from.

“That's not what this is about,” Steve roars.

“That's what you've made this about,” snarls Stark.

“Because you won't listen! You never listen.”

“You know what,” she spits, every word tinged with angry venom. “Not even _Ty_ was this controlling!”

The silence in the room stretches on for so long, Carol wants to go in just to check there's still someone in there.

“Steve.” Tasha sounds so small, so vulnerable, so afraid. Whatever she's said, the poison hit its mark. This is very private and Carol wants to stop listening.

“I think... I-” His voice is rough, utterly wrecked. He picks his words slowly, with the care of someone stepping through pieces of broken glass. “I'm going to the mansion for a few days. That's where I'll be. For Avengers business.”

From inside the apartment, come the sounds of an elevator. The door opens, closes, and then it descends. Then comes the crying. It starts out quiet. Then, it becomes so loud, it would be impossible not to listen. It sounds angry and desperate and powerless. It is uncontrolled and uncontrollable.

Jess makes to go in but, this time, it's Carol who holds her back. This is too personal and, Carol suspects, Stark wouldn't want to be seen like this; she has her pride. Instead, they wait. They wait until they die down to great gasping sobs, gulping for air. They wait until those sobs stop completely. They wait until they hear her move around the apartment and make a phone call.

“Rhodey, where are you? … Don't be, I need you here. … Something stupid. … Make it thirty.”

Only then does Carol gesture them down. When she answers the door, Stark looks faintly surprised to see them. Her body is covered in the skin-tight gold under armor and her face, through the remnants of the previous night's make-up, is streaked with tears.

“Cap said we should come by,” says Carol. She hopes her voice doesn't betray anything. “We'd have been here on time but someone couldn't get out of bed.”

“Sorry.” Catching on quick, Jess does her best guilty face.

“Right, right.” Stark sounds distracted. “He did tell me, yeah. Come in. He's had to go and, uh, take care of some business – last minute stuff, you know how it is – so you've only got me, I'm afraid. He asked me to send his apologies. Take a seat, help yourself to pastries. I just need five minutes to freshen up.”

She walks away, leaving them to settle themselves on one of the couches. As she leaves the room, the gold sheath begins to melt its way back in to her skin; that settles the Extremis question. The room they are in is a large, open-plan living and dining room with a kitchen just off to one side. It's modern, stylish and expensive looking – everything Carol would expect from Stark – but the room is littered with signs that this is Steve's home too. There is a sketchbook and pencil on the coffee table, a framed Uncle Sam poster on one wall, and a few other pieces of WWII memorabilia around the place. Pictures of their friends, both past and present, sit on tables and sideboards.

Above the fireplace hangs a beautiful piece of art. It depicts a reclining woman, her head thrown back defiantly, dark hair wild. She's naked but parts of her flow in and out of being covered with red and gold armor. From between her exposed breasts, where her heart would be, emanates a ball of bright white light that illuminates the whole picture. The light is fighting off the darkness that creeps in around the edges of the work. With one leg raised and no attempt made at modesty, she looks more like Michelangelo’s Adam than any Venus. Somehow, this naked woman, composed of paint, feels more true than the one in the Playboy photographs ever could. It's signed 'S. Rogers'.

Jess hops up and walks over to the dining table, where the pastries are. Alongside them, there are two mugs and two plates with half eaten breakfasts on them. She grabs one for each of them off a large platter, turns to bring them over but stops, frowning, when she sees something. Carol looks behind her to see what's caught Jess's attention. It's another picture, this one a blown up photograph. From the veil on her armor, it was taken on their wedding day but it's not one they've seen before. The image that went viral was of them kissing, Steve bending her backwards, one hand at the back of her neck. In this one, Stark has one arm around his waist while the other hand cups his face, pushing it up as she kisses him, hovering just off the ground.

When Carol walks over to Jess to take her pastry, she finds she has to step over a broken vase of fresh cut flowers, almost hidden down the side of the couch. Trying not to think too hard about any parallels that shares with what they overheard, she picks up the soggy piece of card. In neat handwriting, it reads, 'For my Shellhead, Love S.'

“Ignore that, I'll get it cleaned up later,” says Stark, returning to the room. Carol drops the note like it's burnt her fingers. “Now what was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

She positions herself on a couch and gestures for them to take the opposite one with a formal smile. In the short time Stark has been gone, she has straightened her hair, applied a light layer of make up and dressed in a light gray business suit. Had they not seen her previously, there is no way Carol would have any idea of the morning's events.

Jess hands Carol a pastry – a maple and pecan plait – and settles down next to her.

“She wants to ask big important questions so she can figure out how here is different to home,” Jess tells Stark, gesturing to Carol. “Me, I just want to know how much the tabloids have got right about Stasha.”

The smile freezes over a little but, with one look at Jess's genuine curiosity, quickly defrosts.

“It might help,” adds Carol. “Not sure how but it might.”

“Of course.” With her straight backed posture and calculated head tilts, Stark is more like a monarch holding court than the manic genius they met yesterday. “Would you like me to record this for you?” Carol nods. “Ask away.”

“The wedding: why the armor?” says Jess.

At that, an amused little smile plays across her face.

“Why not?” she shoots back. “Mostly I did it because no one expected it – least of all Steve. There was so much speculation in press – it was the wedding of the century, after all, the nation's favorite son marrying its richest daughter – and none more so than about the damn dress. You have to understand, I had something of a reputation. When you believe you're going to die any day, you live every one like it's your last. It became a game in some circles: who will seduce Natasha Stark tonight. A lot of them I don't remember – I was drunk – a lot I'd have never said yes to sober, but they were there and I was lonely. I can say that now. So, when the wedding came around the press's favorite topic was: will she wear white. I decided, screw the lot of them, it's my wedding, I'll wear what I want.”

“That was the day you came out as Iron Man, wasn't it?” prompts Jess.

She nods. “The day Iron Woman was born. Didn't tell anyone what I was doing, mind you, but if you're going to marry Captain America, you might as well do it properly. I wasn't going to have anyone thinking I'm an easy target, so it was out of the phone box and down the aisle in one fell swoop.” She looks like she's suppressing a grin.

“He already knew, right?” Carol asks.

“Oh, yes, he knew,” she chuckles. “You ever want to see a super-solider blush, get a villain to strip you of all your clothes. He was off with me for weeks after that, though. Couldn't get over the fact that the Avengers' wealthy benefactor – the woman he'd been crushing on since he met her, I might add – and his best friend Iron Man were one and the same.”

“Why 'Iron Man'? Why did you keep up the pretense of being a man for so long?” Carol wants to steer the conversation away from their relationship.

“I built a suit of armor in the middle of a desert,” Stark scoffs. “At the time, I was more concerned with staying alive than putting boob cups in it for easy gender recognition.” Her tone softens. “It's a suit of armor, it's a pretty gender neutral thing. Wasn't my fault everyone assumed there was a man in it. I played up the idea of Iron Man as my bodyguard, nobody ever imagined it could be a woman. Kept me and those around me safe. Anyway, boob cups would compromise the structural integrity of the chest plate.”

“How long after he found out did you and Cap get together?” asks Jess, returning the conversation to 'Stasha'. Carol finds herself disproving slightly of how invested in it Jess has become. “Your drinking, you're very open about it in interviews, but you don't say anything about him and that time.”

“Steve...” Tasha pauses, considering whether to go beyond what she would usually tell to reporters. “Steve didn't happen until a while after I got sober. He found it hard to be around me when I was drinking. Apparently, I threw myself at him a few times drunk – I don't remember – so he kept his distance.”

“So, what happened?”

“One of my exes tried to kill me, you know how it is. Now, surely you must have more interesting things to ask me about than my marriage.”

Carol thinks how much she would like to ask Stark about her marriage, but she refrains. Anything she wants to ask about is going to be too raw and too new. However, there is one thing she can ask in that area without giving away what she knows.

“Are you thinking about drinking now?” asks Carol.

Meeting her gaze levelly, Stark says, “What do you think, Carol?”

She has her answer.

“Who's Mike?” Carol tries instead.

The look Tasha gives her is inscrutable. “Mike is one of our own who's fallen on hard times. Don't worry, we're looking after him. Why do your IDs say that you're unregistered?”

It's a neat little deflection, simultaneously shifting attention away from one subject they want to investigate and on to another. Carol lets it go; she can try that one again later.

“We don't have the registration act any more,” Jess tells her. “After everything that happened, it wasn't worth keeping.”

Maybe, Carol considers, telling Stark about the mess that arose out of the SHRA will help her to trust them enough to part with a little more information. So, she does – at least as much as she knows. As Jess was MIA for a lot of it, Carol has to tell most of it herself but she helps where she can. When she gets to the final battle of the superhero war, Stark looks unsettled. By the time she reaches the events of Steve's funeral, including Tony's breakdown on the podium, Tasha looks like, if she was not in company, she would be in tears again.

“Why didn't Tony tell anyone, tell _Steve_?” Tasha gesticulates angrily. “If they'd worked together, they could have delayed and delayed and gotten it watered down enough that most of the rebels would be satisfied. I know we have a handful who won't register but -”

“It gets worse,” Carol says, with a supportive look at Jess. Then, she tells her about the Skrulls.

“We found them a few months before the wedding and sent them packing. How did they get that much of a foothold?”

She keeps going, covering Osborne's takeover, Steve's return and Tony's deletion of his own mind.

“All of that because they didn't talk?” Stark sounds stunned.

“Sharing a bed probably helped in your case,” adds Jess.

“Doesn't mean you say anything.” There's bitterness in her tone. “I'm afraid that will have to be all, ladies, I have a meeting to get to.” She sees Jess eying the platter of pastries longingly, then adds cuttingly, “Please, take as many as you like.”

* * *

“Is it me or is she kind of a bitch?” asks Jess, once they leave the apartment and return to their room.

“I kind of hate myself for saying this but I think she's entitled to be,” replies Carol. “Don't get me wrong, I loathe bitchy women as much as anyone else. Only, Tasha's got everything Tony has. More even, if she still has Steve. I keep thinking of her as girl Tony – Tony minus one penis plus a pair of breasts – but she's not, she's an entirely different person. And, if being a bitch got her all that, then maybe that's not such a bad thing.”

Jess runs her hand through her hair, mouth scrunched up in thought. “I never thought of it like that. That thing with the pastries still wasn't okay, though.” Just to spite her, Jess took the whole platter with them when they left.

“By the way, I had a thought about McCoy. You know how you said Penny was more timid than Hank?”

“I believe the word I used was 'bombastic'.”

“Right. Well, do you know anything about Hank's mutation?”

“I know that he's blue, fuzzy and that I occasionally get the urge to pet him.”

“He wasn't always that way. Back before he joined the Avengers, before the X-Men, he was the star of his high school football team. 'The Manila Gorilla', they called him. As he tells it, they loved him, though they didn't know he was a mutant. His mutation made him big and flexible with large hands and feet, the perfect football player. But put that mutation on a teenage girl...”

“I might have skipped high school but even I know that's not going to end well.”

“Pretty sure it didn't. That kind of thing, it'll wreck a girl's self-confidence. Hell, the crap I got just for being taller than some of the boys, I hate to imagine what she went through.”

As they haven't really planned further ahead than interviewing Steve and Tasha, they are not sure what to do next. Stark has forwarded the recording of their conversation to their borrowed tablet, so they spend some time updating the mind map. Although it fills in a lot of the gaps, they're still no closer to knowing how they got here. She didn't even get to ask how their Carol died. Now, she's frustrated; she really thought this would work.

“Hey.” Jess's hands settle on her tense shoulders and squeeze gently. “Relax. We'll figure this out.”

Carol sighs, forlornly. “I miss punching things. This would be so much easier if we could hit someone 'til they send us home.”

“I know. But, as that's not gonna work, we have to do the gumshoe thing. Why don't we go see if there's anyone else who won't give us straight answers?”

“You noticed that too, huh?”

They can't find anyone in any of the communal areas – Carol wouldn't be surprised if Stark has ordered everyone to stay away from them – so they make their way down to medical to see if Dr McCoy is in. They are in luck; she's sat behind her desk, a large pile of identical food wrappers in front of her. She looks slightly surprised to see them and, in one movement, pushes all of the wrappers in to the waste paper basket beside her desk.

“You've got, uh,” Jess says, rubbing at the side of her own mouth to indicate where McCoy has a smear of cream.

Looking slightly embarrassed, she wipes it on the back of one large paw. “How can I help you, ladies? Or are you just here for the pleasure of my charming company?”

“Bit of both,” admits Carol. “Where is everyone?”

“The good Captain has summoned them to the mansion to discuss – amongst other topics – you, my dear. I was expecting company but my, ah, friend has been unfortunately detained at work.” The corners of her feline mouth droop downwards with disappointment. She stands, brushing crumbs off her dress – which today is green with purple polka-dots. “Now, where are my manners, may I offer you both tea?”

They sit and she serves them loose-leaf Earl Grey from an ornate china tea set; the kind where even the teapot matches the saucers. Carol doesn't know whether to stick her pinky out as she sips her drink or not. If she's being honest, she's also a little scared of crushing the delicate little teacup if she grips it too hard.

“Your friend?” asks Jess. “She green haired and a bit trigger happy?”

Penny looks at the floor and, although Carol can't be sure with all that fur obscuring her cheeks, blushes.

“Yes, she is,” she mumbles. Then, she recomposes herself. “What can I do for you?”

Carol explains about their theory, that the key to their predicament may lie somewhere in the differences between the two worlds. After insisting that they must call her Penny – Dr McCoy, apparently, sounds terribly stuffy – she's more than happy to share anything that might be useful. She is, she admits, a little intrigued herself by the differences.

“What does Kitty Pryde do for Stark?” asks Carol, starting with one of the questions she forgot to ask Stark.

Penny looks a little surprised. “Almost everything Ms Potts doesn't,” she tells them. “Kitty won a college scholarship for women in technology that Tasha funds. When she saw the quality of her code, she offered her a job on the spot. Tasha had no idea Kitty was mutant, you understand, she just had no intention of letting a young woman that gifted go to a competitor where she might not be properly appreciated. Within a few years, she was all but running the software portion of the business – the operating system of the Stark Pad is her baby.”

“I thought it seemed a bit different,” admits Jess. “Easier to use, actually.”

“Between you and me,” Penny shares conspiratorially. “She's a far more adept programmer than Stark has ever been – Natasha knows that although she'd never admit to it – which is why she did the hack on Reed's system when you arrived. With her overseeing the technological side of things and Pepper dealing with most of the business concerns, Tasha's company practically runs itself.”

Satisfied, Carol decides to try another topic but this time from a different angle.

“What happened to Mike?” she probes.

“I suppose you would want to know about that, wouldn't you?” Penny muses sadly. “He's not my patient and it's almost common knowledge around here, so I don't see why you shouldn't know. I have to say, I feel some responsibility for what happened, but then – to a greater or lesser extent – I think we all do. My guilt comes from having developed the medication he used. I'd been working on a painkiller that circumvents healing factors and toxicity resistance, you see, and he took practicality my whole stock. His intention was to end his own life.”

“It didn't work though, did it?” prompts Jess when Penny lapses in to a pained silence. “Clint said Carol should go and see him, to cheer him up.”

“Believe me,” Penny advises forcefully. “That would be a very bad idea. The last thing he needs would be to see Carol. No, you're right, he was unsuccessful. We found him in time but- He's now either unable to control his abilities or unwilling, we simply don't know. But worry not, my dear, he's receiving the very best psychiatric care we can provide.” She gives Carol a reassuring smile.

“Why did he do it?”

“Mental illness is very complex, you understand,” Penny explains. “It could have any number of roots or no origin at all. However, in this case, much of his torment may have stemmed from guilt over what happened to Carol.”

“What did happen to Carol?” Carol herself asks.

“Has no one told you yet? Dear me,” she tuts. “Mike was doing something – I'm not clear myself what exactly – and got in to difficulties. She went in after him. By the time backup arrived, she was dead and he was badly injured.”

“Who could tell us what he was doing? It might have something to do with us being here.”

“Steve would be the best one to ask. Even if he is unknowledgeable, he could no doubt point you to the person who does possess the information.”

“Speaking of Cap,” raises Jess. “Him and Tasha have been really tense lately, haven't they? Do you know what they're fighting about?”

Penny scrutinizes them for a moment, considering her words carefully. “As a medical professional who has treated both of them on occasion, if I were to share anything with you, I would be breaking doctor patient confidentiality. If, of course, you were able to find someone unrestricted by a Hippocratic oath, someone who – for example – _Tasha_ might have confided in – say, a close female friend which is something she doesn't possess a lot of – and persuade her to share the details of their marital difficulties with you then there would be nothing I could do about it. I'm sorry I couldn't be more help.”

Carol finds herself smiling at that. “Are you saying we should go talk to Pepper Potts?” she suggests.

“You may very well think that,” Penny replies with a twinkle in those golden eyes. “But I couldn't possibly comment.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: Alcoholism, drunk sex, sex of dubious consent, drug overdose, references to suicide, discussion of a character death. Also, descriptions of nakedness and breasts. Lots of breasts. Oh, and Penny McCoy's Twinkie habit.
> 
>  
> 
> Apologies for the amount of talking this chapter. Even I am beginning to share Carol's frustration at the lack of action.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings in end notes.

With Kitty Pryde's help, Penny manages to secure them a meeting with Pepper Potts just after noon. Potts sits behind her huge desk, scrutinizing them, a little perturbed. The desk is immaculate, the only personal touch a framed picture of a broad-faced man with light brown hair.

“No,” she tells them flatly. “Just, no. I'm sorry, I sympathize with your predicament, I really do, but I will not betray her confidence like that.”

“Thanks anyway,” Carol says, rising to leave. “It was worth a shot.”

“Actually,” Jess cuts in. “There might a be couple of things you can help us with.”

“Fine.” Pepper purses her lips in annoyance. “But I reserve the right not to answer if I think it could compromise Tasha.”

“Can't really complain at that. Why does Sue Richards hate Stark?”

Pepper sighs, shoulders slumping with resignation. “I take it you know about Tasha and Johnny's... for argument's sake, let's call it a relationship. The part the tabloids never caught wind of was that he proposed.”

“Seriously?” asks Carol, dumbfounded. “But- I mean- What did they have common?”

“Sex, mostly. That was part of the problem. As her friend, I want to be nice and say she wasn't using him – no, actually, she was using him. She's very adept at getting people – men especially – to do what she wants, so much so, I don't even think she knows she does it half the time. The poor man thought it was real. Instead of doing the right thing, telling him upfront that she didn't want to marry him, she disappeared so she wouldn't have to deal with it. When she went missing, he was frantic, thought something had happened to her, searched everywhere he could think of. He got in over his head and got badly injured, nearly died. He was in a coma for six weeks. Tasha was fine, she was in the Seychelles with another man – I don't even remember who – but Sue has never forgiven her for it.”

“That's...” Carol starts but doesn't finish, unsure what to say.

“Deplorable?” Pepper offers. She catches Carol's surprised expression. “Just because she's my friend doesn't mean I have to approve of everything she does. Or that I'm unaware of her faults.”

“It wasn't Storm who tried to kill her, was it?” asks Jess. “I mean, I know it was one of her exes -”

“No,” interrupts Pepper. “She may have treated him pretty badly but Johnny would never do that. No, that was Ty.”

“Ty?” prompts Carol, thinking back to the overheard argument.

“Tiberius Stone.” She spits the name like it's a dirty word. “A nasty piece of work, if ever there was one. Whatever you do, don't bring him up around Steve. It's a guaranteed way to upset him.”

“What happened?”

“She left him – Ty that is. He didn't like that one bit.” The very memory of it seems to make Pepper angry. “If he couldn't have her, no one could. Tasha and Steve weren't together at that point but a lot of the press kept suggesting they were. He liked that even less. Ty's psychotic, he killed his own parents because he thought she'd love him more if he was an orphan too. He systematically tried to destroy everything she had – her reputation, her business, Iron Man – all the while telling her it must be someone else, he _loved_ her too much to ever hurt her like that. Steve even went on national television to defend her. Thankfully, she got wise to what he was doing before it was too late. If she hadn't... She would have wound up totally dependent on him – I think that's probably what he wanted all along. After she got away, he blamed everything on a third party and publicly made _her_ out to be the crazy, manipulative one. So when the press started making noises about her and Steve, he went after her. Between the two of them, they managed to stop him. After that, they stopped dancing around each other and finally got their act together.”

“So, what are they fighting about now?” Jess tries again.

Pepper looks at her curtly. “I've already told you, I won't talk about that.”

“Hey Carol, how did Happy die?”

From Pepper's sharp little intake of breath, Carol knows that Jess's question has had the desired effect. It's an underhand tactic, designed to expose her one vulnerability and use it to their advantage. Carol doesn't like it one bit.

“Jess, that's not fair,” Carol says quietly.

“No, I think she needs to hear it. I'd tell her myself but, as I was kind of missing at the time, you know it better than me.”

The two of them conduct a silent argument, both trying to stare the other down. Carol loses.

“In our world, Iron Man and Cap fell out over the SHRA,” she tells Pepper, softly. “They fell out badly. At the height of the fighting, Happy took a beating to protect Stark; I don't even think what happened had anything to do with the act. His injuries were serious enough that he didn't make it, Tony was pretty broken up over it. Stark's a futurist, tries to predict what's coming. If he wasn't fighting with Steve, could he have foreseen that, would Happy have lived? I don't know. But I do know that things are better all round, and fewer people get hurt, when those two are working together.”

“She told me in confidence,” Pepper insists, voice hoarse.

“I know. But, if what they've been fighting over has anything to do with why we're here, then it could help us get home. If it does, then who are we going to tell? Maybe, one of the side effects is that they reconcile their differences and then Tasha can go back to looking for threats to her friends and family. We don't know and we won't know unless you tell us.”

Jess's tactic seems to be working. Across the desk from them, Pepper is struggling between her loyalty to her friend and her desire to protect her husband. Carol's a little disgusted at herself for having done that but more than a little angry at Jess for putting her in that position. In the end, Pepper's marriage seems to win out and her resolve crumbles in front of them.

“They've been fighting about a lot of things lately. It's bad, really bad.” She sounds tired, like this is something she's been dealing with on her own for a while. “Anything they can fight about, they do. But, in part, it started with Tasha doing something stupid.”

“What she do?” Jess prompts.

“She built a – I don't know if it's software or hardware or whatever – but she built a _something_ that works with Extremis and tells her body to release progesterone.”

“Wait, I've taken that before. That's the one that stops your periods, right?”

Pepper nods.

“That's why Penny couldn't tell us,” Carol mutters to Jess. “It's a medical thing.”

“Why would they be fighting over that?” asks Jess.

Then it dawns on Carol. “She didn't tell Steve did she?”

“What do you think?” Pepper says ruefully. “Steve Rogers must be the only man alive who pays more attention to his wife's cycle than she does. I don't think I've seen him happier than when he thought she was pregnant. Of course, she wasn't and she had to tell him the truth about what she'd done. That's when the fighting started.”

“But why didn't she tell him?” raises Jess.

“Because Tasha doesn't want kids. They've been married a while now so, to Steve, starting a family is the next natural step. He didn't discuss it with her, just assumed she wanted them too and it was going to happen. Not wanting to disappoint him, she went off the pill and built her own contraceptive in secret. I think she thought, that if it seemed they couldn't conceive, then he'd have to make his peace with it. It would be terrible but it wouldn't be anyone's fault, least of all hers. She didn't count on how observant he is.”

“So, she doesn't want kids. She doesn't have to have them. Leave that to the Jessica Jones and the Sue Richards of this world.”

“I think it's more about the deception, Jess,” Carol says. “How can they begin to fix that? She'd resent him if they had kids and he'd resent her if they didn't. There's no way around that.”

Pepper sighs. “Yeah. You can see why they're arguing all the time. Thankfully, nothing will happen to the company if they split. They have the only prenup in history that covers them for everything from mind control to time travel and from magical transformation to alien imposters. The clauses on adultery and irreconcilable breakdown are fairly straightforward in comparison. Does it help? Will any of that get you home?”

“Honestly? I don't know,” Carol shrugs.

* * *

It's not until they're in the elevator back up to the kitchen to grab some lunch, that Carol allows her annoyance at Jess to surface.

“I can't believe you did that,” she chides.

“Did what?” asks Jess, confused.

“Put me in a position where I had to manipulate her like that.”

“It worked didn't it?”

“Yes, it worked, but that doesn't make it right and you know it.”

“So what should we have done, hmm?” Jess crosses her arms and looks unrepentant. “Kept chasing our tails, trying to get someone who maybe knows part of what's going on to tell us? At least we know now. Alright, it may not be relevant, but now we _know_ it's probably not relevant. We can go look for other stuff that might get us home.”

“Stop trying to justify it, Jess.” Now, she's not just annoyed, she's pissed that Jess won't acknowledge she's done anything wrong. “It was underhand and unnecessary. Frankly, I thought you'd stopped pulling that kind of crap a long time ago. I thought you were better than that now.”

Jess tenses up, face turning hard. “Better than what? A skrull? Or a Hyrda brat?”

“Come on, you know I didn't -”

“I know what you meant, Carol,” she bites. The elevator doors open. Jess makes no move to get out. “You go ahead. I'm gonna go lie down for a bit. Or take a shower. Something like that.”

Carol walks out, now more angry at herself for upsetting Jess than she was with Jess in the first place. She takes out her frustration on several eggs, beating them together to make an omelet. Still annoyed, she sits at the breakfast bar and starts eating.

Footsteps pad lightly behind her. Carol turns her head to see who they belong to but she doesn't recognize their owner. He's a lithe man, auburn haired and only a couple of inches taller than her. It's a miracle she heard him at all, he moves so lightly, barely making a sound. He's barefoot and wearing loose fitting pyjama pants and a t-shirt. That and his ruffled hair suggest he has only just gotten out of bed.

Nodding a curt greeting, Carol returns to her lunch, not in the mood for conversation. Instead of leaving her alone, he takes the stool next to hers. When she glances quickly over, she notices he doesn't have any food or drink in front of him. Another glance and she realizes he is simply looking at her.

She puts down her cutlery with a clank. “Can I help you?”

“You're so beautiful, Carol,” he says. “I know you hate it when I say that but, I haven't seen you in so long, I was beginning to forget just how beautiful you are.”

“I think you have me confused with another Carol,” she tells him coolly. This exchange and the way he stares is already starting to unnerve her.

“Maybe I am.” The twist of his lips could almost be called a wry smile. Now she's looking at his face, Carol can see just how green his eyes are. “But that's the beauty of it, we can fall in love all over again. How many couples get to do that?”

She keeps her tone even, not wanting to encourage him. “I wasn't aware I'd fallen in love with you once.”

“Of course, you haven't. That was important – probably the most important thing. You couldn't be a Carol who was already in love with me. I couldn't put anyone through the pain of loosing you, not ever, least of all me.”

There's something about his accent. It's predominantly American but it's odd. One or two vowel sounds come off wrong, not quite what Carol would expect. She's heard that kind of variation before, in people who started out with one accent but acquired an American one along the way. She could be wrong, but a few of them sound almost... British?

“And if I don't want to fall in love with you?” She's pretty sure he's crazy but she wants to keep him talking, to see what else he has to say. Especially as he seems to be implying he's the one who brought them here.

Lightly, he laughs. “You will. That's how it's meant to be, how it's always meant to be. Even if it doesn't happen right away, I'm prepared to wait. I know, you'll always love me in the end.”

When he reaches out to take her hand, Carol jerks hers back. She meets his eyes fiercely, staring him down.

“It's okay,” he coos, like she's some kind of skittish animal in need of placating.

Instead of infuriating her like that treatment normally would, she finds herself believing him. She feels really safe, in fact. Something's not right, she realizes. A moment ago, this guy was creeping her out and now she couldn't trust him more. In the back of her mind, a small part of her is screaming to fight against it. She tries but the blanket of security wraps itself a little tighter around her mind, smothering any protests. Everything feels good, like she's being bathed in sunlight. She's too hot, her clothes too tight. When she starts pawing at them, trying to take them off, he stills her with a single touch.

“Leave them on, babe,” he chuckles. “We've got plenty of time for that later.”

“Wow,” Carol breathes, catching sight of him as though for the first time.

How had she not noticed before how gorgeous he is? Beautiful, even. Unbelievably fuckable, certainly. She wants to crowd him up against a wall and kiss all the breath out of him. She wants to be naked with him, watch those green eyes roll up in to his head, leave marks on that perfect pale skin. More than anything, she wants him. She wants him right now. Breathing heavily, she leans forward, desperate to feel his lips.

An arrow whistles past her ear and settles in the wall behind her gorgeous man's head. Then, a voice comes out of the speakers, interrupting their beautiful moment.

“I don't miss, you know that,” the voice says. Carol's really annoyed at it; all she wants is to be left alone with this divine person. “So consider that a warning shot. And, in case you don't think I'll do it, Nat's in the next building, with her rifle trained on you, and you know she won't hesitate. Step away from Captain Marvel before you do something – or you make her do something – we're all gonna regret.”

“Why don't you come in here and talk to me yourself, Clint?” he says, voice directed at the ceiling. “It seems stupid to have this conversation over the comms.”

“You know damn well why I can't!” the voice snaps. It's an ugly voice, she decides. No voice could ever be as beautiful as his. Then, one side of a muttered conversation drifts over the speakers. “No one can... I still don't... You sure you... More of a risk...Can try it...” More clearly, the voice announces, “Alright, we're coming in. Under no circumstances are you to touch her, is that clear?”

“I won't do anything she doesn't want me to, I promise,” he declares. That seems reasonable to Carol; she badly wants his hands all over her, almost as much as she wants to touch every part of him.

In to the kitchen walks Clint, bow string taut, arrow trained on her exquisite man. Carol doesn't like that one bit. She stands, flinging herself between perfection and the threat. Nothing will hurt him, she will not let them. Anything that would spoil him or keep them apart has to be prevented. She needs him too much to let anything happen to him.

Only then does she notice Jess over Clint's shoulder. Her face is flushed with concentration and, whatever it is she's doing, it hits Carol like a cold shower, all desire evaporating instantly.

“Carol,” she says, voice strained. “Leave. Now. Clint, go with her.”

“What-” Carol tries.

“ _Now_ ,” Jess orders. “Both of you.”

Although she doesn't want to leave Jess in the same room as that man, she does as instructed. Clint backs out with her, keeping his arrow pointed at him. When they're just outside the kitchen door, he stops. From this position, their view is nothing more than a thin sliver between two walls but it's enough. The man hasn't moved from his high stool and is looking at Jess with confusion. Her fist connects with his jaw, sending him flying to the floor. Then, she turns and walks towards them.

“Nat, keep your eyes on him,” Clint says in to his comm. “Tasha, lock all the doors on my mark.” Jess steps out of the kitchen. “Now.”

Only when the doors slam shut and they hear the clunk of the locks do Clint and Jess relax.

* * *

Clint takes them through to the common room where they're met by Cap and Stark. Carol all but collapses on to one of the couches and Jess takes the seat next to her. Unsurprisingly, Steve and Tasha stand at opposite ends of the room, neither looking at the other. After informing them that Nat has her weapon trained on Carol's assailant and that he won't be going anywhere any time soon, Clint positions himself by the door, leaning against the wall.

“So, would someone like to explain to me what Mike Drew is doing in your kitchen when, last I heard, he was locked in the nut house?” Carol asks. She knows she's being unkind but, after that, she really isn't feeling inclined to be nice anymore. Both Steve and Tasha look surprised. “That's who he is, right?”

“Yeah,” Stark nods. “But I didn't think you knew Mike?”

“Hi. Jessica Drew,” says Jess, raising one hand. “Pleased to meet you. In addition to saving my best friend from perverts with pheromone powers, I'm also available for weddings, bar mitzvahs -”

“Jess,” Carol stops her, voice quiet.

“Mike's not a pervert,” Clint adds, defensively. “He just can't control them any more.”

“I think he can, “ insists Carol. “I just don't think he wants to. When he sat down, I wasn't immediately effected. He only used them on me after I didn't cooperate.”

“That makes sense,” concurs Jess. “He wasn't expecting me to be able to counteract them. I think he was trying to stop me but my control was better.”

“Here's what I think. They were in love, weren't they? From the way he talked, Carol was probably the love of his life. When he got in to trouble, she went in without back-up. Maybe she saved his life, maybe she didn't. Either way, he felt responsible for what happened. The painkillers might have damaged his ability to control his pheromones initially – or he might have just been faking it to get everyone to leave him alone – but, when suicide didn't work, he looked around for a way to live without her. Instead of focusing of getting better, he realized he didn't have to live without her, there must be other Carols, in other universes, who never fell in love with him. It couldn't be any Carol – that would be the ultimate cruelty, to inflict the same pain on another Mike – he had to take one who wasn't already loved by him or a version of him. He brought me here so I could be his forever. In his mind, we're made for each other. I doubt he meant to bring Jess as well – you said it yourself, he wasn't expecting you to stop him. I think that's what the robots and the explosions were about. They were probably a way to make sure I was in a clear space so he could grab me easily. What I still don't know is this: how he did it and how to get us back? But give me five minutes alone in a room with him and I will.”

“First of all,” says Steve. “Whatever he might have done, Mike is still a very sick man. I don't doubt you feel pretty violated right now – I'm sorry about that, I really am – but beating answers out of him is not how we do things. It's not how our Carol did things and I doubt it's how you do things normally, either.”

In every universe, Captain America can instill feelings of shame in Carol like no one else.

“There's also two major flaws in your theory,” raises Tasha. “One is that Michael Drew might be many things but a genius is not one of them. He just doesn't have the intellect or resources necessary to pull this off on his own. The other is that – until a few hours ago – he's been upstate, in a secure psychiatric facility, where all of his visitors and communications are monitored, since his overdose. There's no way he did all this by himself.”

“How did he get out?” Steve asks. “And, even if whoever he's been working with told him you were here somehow, how did he know where to find you?”

“Mike might not be a genius,” suggests Clint. “But he was raised by Hyrda to be their pet spy. I wouldn't be surprised if he'd planned an escape within a few days of you putting him in there. And he knew where she was because I told him.”

“You did _what_? After I specifically ordered you not to?” Underneath his usual calm, Steve seems furious.

“Yeah, Cap, I did.” He's not backing down in the face of Steve's anger. “'Cause while you might be over your guilt, some of us still feel responsible.”

“Wait, why would you feel responsible?” butts in Jess. “I thought he tried to kill himself because he felt Carol's death was his fault.”

“He did. Only, he didn't do it right away.” Clint sounds full of remorse as he talks. “After a bit of time off – you know, to grieve and get his head straight, important stuff – he came back, returned to active duty. On the outside, he seemed fine. Inside, he was dying. He was a complete mess and he didn't say anything to anyone. I was his buddy and he didn't feel he could tell me. So, yeah, I feel responsible.”

“He was sick,” Steve tells him, trying to remedy the situation. “There was no way to know what would-”

“Bullshit, Steve!” shouts Clint. “If he'd talked to someone, said something, then maybe he wouldn't have got that sick. You know why he didn't? He thought he was expected to just get on with it. Sure, he'd lost his girlfriend but, he'd had his time off, he was back on the duty roster. There are plenty here who've been through worse and, if he was back at work, he must okay, right? Who thought he was fit, who put him back on the roster, Steve?”

“I did.”

“You're damn right, you did. Alright, you never told him he couldn't talk about his problems but he didn't want to seem weak, to let you down. Nobody wants to disappoint Captain America. You go off, you do your stoic, broody thing – alright, that seems to work for you – but the poor bastard with the shitty childhood who's just lost his whole world, he's got no idea what to do with himself. So, he looks to the best male role model around – that's you, Steve – to work out the right way to deal with this stuff. I'm not saying it's all your fault, I'm not, but we can't bury our heads in the sand and pretend we're completely blameless, either. So, I go up there, whenever I can, and I talk to him. I didn't do it when he needed me to but I try to do it now. He's seemed so down lately, when they showed up, I thought telling him about another Carol who's alive, well and happy – I thought it might help.” He looks crestfallen. “I never thought he'd do this.”

“Regardless of what you thought, Clint,” says Tasha. “It doesn't change what he's done. As we can't keep him locked in the kitchen forever – I mean, we _could_ but it's probably not a great idea – we should probably get him back to the facility.”

Steve nods in agreement. “We need to question him but that can wait – I don't expect his doctors will be too willing to let us just yet. As he doesn't seem prepared to control his pheromones, we have to be careful how we handle him.”

“I can seal the armor,” Tasha points out. “Should keep me safe from him. I can take him in a quinjet but I'd rather not have to take him on my own, we don't know what he's capable of anymore.”

“How about me?” offers Jess. “I'm immune and I can neutralize his pheromones if he acts up.”

“Works for me. Think you can do that enough for Steve and Clint to help us get him to the jet?”

She nods.

“Alright then,” says Steve. “You two get him out of here. We can interview him as soon as his doctors allow. Carol -”

She holds up both hands. “Right now, I want a very long, very hot shower. Possibly two, if that's what it takes to stop me feeling so dirty. After that, maybe something to eat, since he interrupted my lunch.”

Steve smiles at her gently. “Sounds reasonable.”

“Cool.”

When everyone starts to file out, Carol stays slumped on the couch. It's barely mid-afternoon and already she feels exhausted. Add to that the disgusting sensation exposure to pheromones has left her with and she is pretty much done with today.

From by the door, she hears Jess say, “I'll catch you up.” Then she comes and sits back at her side. “You okay?”

“Peachy.” There's that skeptical eyebrow again. She sighs. “Not really. If I ever suggest you use your powers to help you get laid ever again, remind me of today, will you. Remind me how fucking _nasty_ it made me feel afterward. He didn't even let me take my clothes off and I feel violated. Imagine how I'd feel if he'd done anything to me – actually, let's not, I really don't want to go there right now.”

She leans forward, hair hanging in front of her face.

“Carol,” Jess breathes. “I wouldn't ever do that. Not to anyone. Steve's right, he's sick, he doesn't know what he's doing.”

“I'm sorry," she mumbles. "For earlier. I didn't mean what I said. You're a much better person than they ever intended you to be.”

“No, Carol, c'mon, don't apologize. You were right, it wasn't fair of me to spring that on you. It was a shitty thing to do, to you and to Pepper.”

“And I'm sorry for dragging you in to this mess. This is all about me, and you got -”

Jess interrupts her. “Carol Captain Marvel Danvers. Am I, or am I not, a superhero?”

“You are but -”

“Then listen to me very carefully when I say this.” Jess sweeps her blonde hair out of her face and, with the same hand, lifts Carol's chin up so she's forced to look at her. “This is not your fault. This happened because the guy version of me could not live without you. His problem, not yours. Would I rather I was at home right now? Yes. But, if I'd been given the choice, would I have let someone else go with you? Hell no.” She brings her other hand up so she has one on each side of Carol's face. “We are going to deal with your psycho inter-dimensional stalker and, when we have, we are going to go home. Clear?”

Carol nods, face still cupped in Jess's hands.

“Good,” Jess declares.

Then, Jess presses her lips to Carol's. It's barely a kiss, a ghost of a thing, the very lightest of pressure against her mouth, so soft that, were it not for Jess's warm breath against her, Carol might not believe it happened.

Jess pulls away ever so slightly and whispers, “He got the wrong universe.”

And then she is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Descriptions of an abusive relationship and the lead up to a suicide attempt, and creepy fucking mind altering pheromones.


	5. Chapter 5

 As she stands in the shower, warm water coursing over her body, Carol begins to feel a little more herself again. The knowledge that the flow of water is stripping away the last of the pheromones from her skin helps. She pictures them as a thin layer of purple coating her body, turning an acrid green when the water hits them, swirling down the drain. It's not enough, though; she can still feel them on her. Grabbing the soap, she starts to scrub at her skin. These, the ones that have gotten under her skin, she imagines as dark little balls of sludge, filling her pores. With the soap mixing with the them, cleaning the sludge out of her body, she pictures them becoming a disgusting puce as the filth washes off of her.

She turns off the water, grabs a towel and steps out. As she rubs the fluffy white fabric all over herself, removing the last of the droplets from her skin, she starts to think about Jess. She's fairly certain Jess must have been affected by the last of Michael's pheromones. Alright, Jess may think she's immune to them but there's no way she could know for sure. Sitting so close to her, Jess must have picked up a stray dose, that's what made her act a little crazy. When she gets back, Carol's sure, Jess is going to be so embarrassed but they will laugh it off – because that's what friends do – and everything will be fine. It was only one tiny kiss, after all, and Jess's hands stayed on her face the whole time. It's not like she kept kissing her or those hands went anywhere else, like through her hair or lower, down her back, to her rear, between her -

There must be something wrong with the ventilation system in the bathroom, Carol decides. That's the only reason for it to be so hot in here.

Once she's dressed, her hunger no longer feels like a concern. Instead, she's tetchy and a little wired. She needs to do something, if only to remind herself that she is still capable of doing something. The weight room seems as good a place as any.

She has just finished a set of deadlifts and is about to begin some aerial overhead presses, when Clint walks in.

“Seventy-five tons,” he admires. “Nice.”

She sets the barbell back on its reinforced stand. “Thanks. What's up?”

“Nothing, just thought you might like to know Tasha and Jess are back.”

“Great, I'll be up in a bit.” She goes back to her workout but Clint doesn't leave. “Was there something else?”

He is doing that awkward neck-rubbing thing again. “About Arachnid-”

“Who?”

“Mike. That's his codename – Arachnid. Which explains why your friend is called Spider-Woman, now I think about it. Anyway, I wanted you to know, he's not normally like this, you know, he's normally a really -”

“Clint,” Carol interrupts. “If you're about to tell me what a really _nice guy_ , your friend is – don't. I'm sure he's done some really great stuff, was an excellent team-mate, always remembered your birthday, whatever. I. Do. Not. Care. In case you'd forgotten, he dosed me with pheromones and tried to make me his, against my will. Maybe I should be the bigger person, remember he's sick, forgive him, and maybe one day I will, but right now, right this second, that's not gonna happen. I am pissed and I think I've every right to be.”

Clint looks crushed. “Just- Don't be too hard on him when you see him tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Apparently, his doctors say you can interview him then. Cap thought it'd be longer but I think they just want to know how he got out.” He turns to leave but stops to add, “He wasn't always this way, okay.”

When she returns to their room, Carol finds Jess stretched out on her own bed, Stark Pad in hand. Jess looks far happier than a woman stranded in another universe has any right to.

“Did you have to punch him again?” Carol asks, leaning in the doorway.

Jess looks up, a brief flicker of surprise momentarily interrupting her happy demeanor.

“Well, I didn't _have_ to...” she grins. “Nah. Disappointingly, he behaved himself. Didn't even turn the pheromones on. He's under armed guard, though, and back in his room. It's got its own air filtration system and everything. His docs are willing to let us talk to him tomorrow.”

“Yeah, Clint told me.” Carol figures it's better to get the matter of the kiss out the way now, before it has time to fester and turn things awkward between them. “Hey Jess, about earlier...”

“Hmm?” Jess sits up and leans towards her, smile playful.

“Don't worry about it, okay? I know it was just a side-effect from the last of Mike's pheromones. You were so close to me, you were bound to pick some up.”

“Right.” Jess stiffens, voice hard to read. “Pheromones. That must be it. Just got sex-pollened, that's all.”

Her hair has fallen in front of her face, obscuring her expression. When she sweeps it back, it's with the same gesture she uses when something's made her uncomfortable. Dammit, that's the opposite of what Carol wanted.

“Jess?” Carol tries, gently.

“Yeah?” she sounds guarded.

“We alright?”

“Of course,” she says. Jess's green eyes meet hers, but her smile is tight.

* * *

At some point in the evening, Jess makes her excuses and disappears. Carol can't blame her, she would probably want to do the same in Jess's position. It's not until the following morning that Carol sees her again, curled up in bed; Carol hadn't even heard her come in.

It's decided that only Steve and Carol should go to the facility. With the increase in security, Mike should pose less of a threat than he did at the tower. Steve and Carol are the best to interview him; as the object of his desire, he might talk to Carol, but he also respects Cap's authority. Anyone else, he might see as a threat.

As Carol pilots the two of them to the facility, the silence between them is a very familiar one. Even though this is a different Steve, it's the same silence Carol shares with the Steve of her world, the one that occurs when something's bothering one or other of them. Under normal circumstances, it would be relieved with punching bags and pointedly ignoring the issue. However, they can't go in there with tension between them – Mike might pick up on it and use it against them – so it needs to be dealt with.

“What?” she demands. He gives her a confused little frown. “Something's up, don't deny it. What is it?”

He takes a moment to reply. “Is everything okay with your friend Jess?” he answers slowly.

Carol blinks with surprise. That's not what she was expecting, at all. She thought it was going to be something about his wife.

“She's fine,” Carol answers, hoping he doesn't notice the tightness to her voice. She sends him a sidelong glance. Why?”

“Because, last night, I found her in the kitchen with Penny. They were working their way through Penny's chocolate cake – the one she doesn't think anyone knows she keeps in for bad days – and several bottles of wine. I know Penny's date got cancelled but was Jess just there so she wasn't drinking in front of you, or is there something else?”

She's going to deny it, reassure him, but he looks so concerned that she can't.

“Some of the pheromones got to her and she... kissed me. It doesn't change anything, I told her that, but I think she's still embarrassed.”

“Jess is immune,” Steve points out quietly.

“Obviously not to all of them.”

“And if she is? If she wasn't under the influence when she did it? 'Cause the woman I saw in that kitchen looked a lot more rejected than embarrassed, to me.”

When Carol doesn't answer, they fall back in to silence. She was so certain it was the pheromones, that Jess kissed her against her own will, Carol hadn't even considered that it might be deliberate. If Jess had done it on purpose- There's a sickening feeling in the pit of Carol's stomach that has nothing to do with flying. She's filled with disbelief that she could ever hurt Jess like that. Except, from what Steve has told her, she has. No wonder Jess left her alone last night; she thinks Carol doesn't want her.

As Steve has interfered with her relationship, Carol figures it's only fair she gets to ask him about his.

“How was the mansion last night?” she wonders aloud. “That's where you stayed, right?”

From the way he clenches his jaw, she knows he did.

“Go home, Steve,” she instructs him. “Go home to your wife. Talk to her, try and sort it out. Whatever it is, it's probably complicated but, you're both so damn stubborn, it just makes matters worse.”

“How did you know?” he asks, voice quiet, eyes straight ahead.

“It's the Avengers,” she replies disparagingly. “National secrets, security secrets, secret identities – those we can do. We keep so many secrets that gossip about each other is the only thing that doesn't stay quiet. We're here.”

She sets the plane down but, before getting up, she turns to him.

“And if you loving each other isn't enough, then how about this. My world, we lost friends because Cap and Stark didn't talk. We lost Cap too. She'd be devastated anything happened to you; I know because I've seen it.”

“Carol,” he protests.

“Hey, listen to me, don't listen to me, it's not my problem. Once we get Mike to talk, I'll be gone. But I'd hate to see anything happen because you two can't sort your differences out.”

Without saying anything more about it, Steve leads her out of the jet and to their destination. Although it had been described to her as a 'secure psychiatric facility', to Carol it looks more like a country home that's been converted in to an expensive hospital. It's not the prison she was expecting at all, this cost serious money. Judging by this place, with its sculpted grounds and turn of the century architecture, Clint was wrong; Steve and Tasha do feel guilty.

Once inside, they're led to a room adjacent to Mike's. With its identical furnishings, it would be an extension of Mike's room, if not for the wall of thick plexiglass separating the two spaces. Like the hospital, the room is not what Carol expected either. It's comfortable and homely, with overstuffed armchairs on both sides of the see-through wall, soft carpets and pale, tranquil colors. Mike sits in one of the armchairs facing the plexiglass, legs crossed underneath him, looking at them with that same calm stare he used on Carol the day before. There's a bruise on his jaw from where Jess's fist connected. In their section of the room, Carol and Steve take the armchairs opposite him.

“Ready when you are,” says Tasha in Carol's ear.

As they took Mike back, Tasha and Jess are the most likely to agitate him, so need to be far away from the facility. However, with them listening in to the conversation from the tower, they give them a way to corroborate anything Mike tells them.

“Hello, Carol,” Mike smiles, voice drifting over the speakers to their section of the room. “Captain.”

“I'll be honest, Mike, you're not the man I thought you were,” Steve informs him. “I spoke to Clint, you told him you were getting better. Why did you lie to him?”

“I didn't lie. There's nothing wrong with me, not anymore. I was ill but I'm better now, Carol saw to that. I don't need to be here, thank you all the same.”

“What did I do?” asks Carol.

He smiles at her. This would be so much easier, Carol decides, if that smile wasn't quite so sane. “You made me feel whole again. Just like you always do.”

“Mike, you do know I'm not your Carol, right?”

“Of course I do. You're my second chance.”

“How did your 'second chance' get here, Mike?” tries Steve. “We know you couldn't bring her here on your own.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” he answers but, for the first time, he looks uncomfortable.

“You do, don't you?” prompts Carol. “There's no way someone didn't help you. Someone saw how much you missed me and offered you a way to make it better, didn't they? Who was it?”

He doesn't say anything just runs his hand through his auburn hair.

“Did someone come see you, Mike?” asks Steve. “Did you make a deal with them?”

Those green eyes flick to the floor. Carol thinks they might be ashamed.

“It was all me,” Mike insists.

As he's still denying the existence of an accomplice, Carol decides it's time to try a different tack. She leans forward in her chair, arms resting on her thighs, and meets his eyes.

“Mike.” She keeps her voice gentle. “You met my friend Jess, didn't you?” He nods, subconsciously touching his bruised jaw. “She wasn't supposed to come too, was she? It was only meant to be me, not my world's Mike too. But, see me and Jess, we're pretty hard to split up. You told me, the worst thing you could do, the very worst thing, would be to take a Carol away from her Mike. You told me, you couldn't put a Mike through that pain, that it wouldn't be fair. That's what you told me, wasn't it?”

He swallows. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.”

“I think your partner messed up. Either that or they just don't care about your wishes. When they brought me here, they were taking me away from Jess. If I stay here, with you, I'd be hurting her. She's my Mike, remember, I couldn't do that to her, and I don't think you want to either.”

Carol hears a sharp little intake of breath through her comm unit. She knows it's Jess but she can't think about that now. In front of her, Mike crumbles.

“Who is it?” she prompts. “Who helped you bring me here?”

“He told me his name was Jesus – that's all he told me,” Mike answers, voice small. “I thought it was a weird name for a guy with blond hair and blue eyes but that's what he said to call him.”

“Give me a second,” says Tasha. “Checking the visitor logs. Thankfully, we picked an expensive clinic with digital records, shouldn't take me long.”

“What did he offer you?” Steve asks Mike. “And what did he want for it?”

“He said he had a way for me to get Carol back. It wouldn't be my Carol, it would be a new one but he said it would be almost like I'd never lost her. He even agreed to my terms. All I had to do was tell him some stuff about the Avengers. I didn't see the harm, most of it's already known to the public anyway.”

“Oh, Mike.” Steve sounds so disappointed.

“Found him,” Tasha announces. “Jesus Auclair. We didn't notice him before because he signed in to see another patient. He- Oh shit.”

“Tash?” Mike jumps slightly at Steve's concerned tone. He obviously hadn't realized they were being listened to.

“It's Ty, Steve, he did this.”

“What? How do you -”

“Jesus Auclair. It's an anagram of Julius Caesar.”

“Wait,” Carol cuts in. “How does that mean it's Tiberius?”

“Pet names,” Tasha explains. “He was Caesar and I was Cleopatra. It's a message for me. This was never about Carol, not really. It was about me.”

“Mike, did he tell you anything?” Steve demands. “Where you could find him, what he was planning, anything?”

“Please, Mike” Carol murmurs. “It's important.”

“He- He said, once Carol was here, his plane would take us anywhere we wanted to go. It would be waiting for us at an airstrip in Jersey. He only gave me coordinates but he told me not to wait for him, he said he wouldn't be able to see us off himself.”

“What were they?” asks Steve.

When Mike's done relating them, Tasha says, “That can't be right.”

“Are you certain those are the coordinates he gave you?” Steve insists.

Mike nods. “He made sure I had them memorized whenever he visited.”

“That's not an airstrip, Steve,” Tasha says. “That's a supposedly empty research facility that, according to land records, belongs to an almost nonexistent company. It's probably a shell corporation acting as a front for whatever Ty's been up to.”

“Did he tell you anything else?” Steve demands again, standing up, large body towering over Mike menacingly, even through the glass. “Anything at all, Mike? C'mon, it's important!”

For the first time since Carol met him, Mike looks afraid. After everything, she thought seeing him suffer would make her feel better. Instead, all she feels is pity. She reaches out and touches Steve's arm.

“He's been played, Steve,” she murmurs. “Same as us. If he knew anything else he'd have told us.”

He stands there for a moment, glaring, as though trying to threaten more information out of the other man. Carol can't blame him; if she was betrayed like this, she would probably be doing the same thing.

“We have to get to that facility,” Steve says at last, turning his back on Mike.

Free of Steve's intense gaze, Mike visibly relaxes although he looks miserable.

“Spider-Woman and I will meet you there,” announces Tasha. “That bastard owes us all answers.”

“Alright,” Carol replies. “See you there.”

Steve doesn't even say goodbye to Mike, he just walks out of the room without a word or a glance. Carol knows he's angry, has every right to be, same as her, but she can't help but look back as she leaves. The look of resignation Mike wears is identical to the one she has seen so many times before on Jess. It's the one Jess wears when she feels she has failed again. His Carol, she realizes, must have felt the same pain, the same desire to protect, as she does when she sees that.

“You coming?” Steve calls. She follows him out without another look.

* * *

Once they've taken off, Steve asks, “What do you know about Ty?”

“From our world, nothing really,” Carol answers. “From your world, I know he's scary obsessed with your wife and you get scary angry whenever he's mentioned.”

“I do not -”

“You looked ready to punch Mike back there, once you found out they'd been working together, so don't give me that.”

“She wasn't even mine,” he murmurs quietly. “And he nearly took her from me. First, though, he tried to break her apart, in the worst way possible. So, yeah he makes me angry.”

When she glances over, Carol doesn't see an angry man. Instead, she sees a man working hard to keep his emotions under wraps. The one that fights its way to the surface most often is fear. He's afraid, she realizes, because, of any of the foes they might have faced, Ty is dangerous in a way unlike any other. If she understood Pepper correctly, this guy was abusive when he was with Tasha. That's not something Steve can solve with his fists or with his inspirational leadership.

“She'll be okay,” Carol reassures him. “Jess is with her and we'll be there soon. He won't get to hurt her this time.”

He nods, absently. The silence returns and she leaves him to his thoughts. Carol was angry enough at Clint for cheating on Jess, she can't even begin to imagine how Steve feels right now. It must be a terrible thing to know that someone had hurt the person you care about so much.

“He's meant to be dead,” Steve mutters, almost to himself. “We left him as good as.”

“Bad ones never stay that way. Neither do the really good ones. It's only the people in between that do, you know that.”

Another nod. “She -” He swallows then starts again. “We, uh, we were fighting and she said I was... just like him.”

“But you're not.” Thankfully, he doesn't seem to notice her lack of surprise at his admission.

“I think I'm more like him than I realized.” This time, he does catch Carol's look of shock. “Not deliberately. I was trying to manipulate her to get what I wanted and I didn't even know I was doing it. She believed she had to do something to make me happy, that I wanted her do to it. That's why I stayed at the mansion last night. When she said it, it cut too close to home. Now I've seen what he's done, I know I'm nothing like him. This is a calculated attack with no consideration for the lives of bystanders. They're just a means to get what he wants.”

“Have you told her any of that? The whole -” She waves her hand. “- you didn't realize you were doing it thing?”

He sighs. “We haven't had a conversation in weeks that didn't end with a shouting match. That's as much my fault as hers. I've been so angry at her, I stopped listening.”

“We'll sort this out and then you can start again, how's that sound?”

“Sounds great.” There's that Captain America smile. Carol wonders if he's wearing it to make her feel better or him.

* * *

Unlike the hospital, the abandoned research facility is so close to what Carol was expecting, it's practically a cliché. Even in broad daylight, the angular building manages to look dark and shadowy, and all the rolls of barbed wire atop the perimeter fence are rusted. Attached to the gates are those faded yellow 'Keep Out' notices, right above where someone's wrapped thick chains around them to keep them shut and secured with a large padlock. In fact, the only way it could be more of a cliché is if it had a sign out front, displaying the site's previous usage, hanging from one nail, swinging creakily in the breeze.

Carol lands their quinjet, in what was probably once the parking lot, next to the one Tasha and Jess have come in. The two women are waiting at the bottom of the ramp when they step out of their jet. In their costumes and with two jets parked out front, they're hardly being inconspicuous.

“Well, this is subtle,” Jess observes, arms crossed and, Carol's certain, eyebrow cocked beneath her cowl.

“Subtly can eat my exhaust fumes,” Tasha says, her voice unrecognizable through the filter of the armor. “I want him to know I'm coming for him.”

It's the first time Carol has seen Natasha Stark in her armor. She was curious how Stark managed to pass herself off as a man for so long but, seeing her now, it's obvious. With the extra inches it adds to her height and across the shoulders, if you weren't looking for a woman, you wouldn't see one. Even the width of her hips, normally a dead give away, is obscured by the shaping of the upper-body armor. Visually, Iron Woman's indistinguishable from the Iron Man Carol knows.

“We don't know he's actually here,” Steve points out.

“Oh, he's here,” Tasha assures him. “Ty wouldn't send Mike off on a wild goose chase. He wanted him to come here and – despite what he said – he'll be here to meet him.”

Suddenly, from out of every shadow, and behind every corner and piece of rubble, crawls a robot. They're identical to the pale, egg faced ones Carol and Jess encountered in Philadelphia. It's almost as if they've been lying in wait. Most of the robots approach them on all-fours, swarming towards them like a colony of cockroaches.

“These are the same as the ones from our world,” shouts Carol, taking off to hover above the horde coming at them from all sides. “Be careful, they explode. Look out for flying limbs, Jess.”

“Har har,” Jess calls back sarcastically. She ducks, dodging an incoming blow from a mechanical arm, before pulling it off its feet and throwing it in to its brother. The falling robot manages to take out another three behind it. “You're never gonna let me forget that, are you?”

Stark has joined Carol in the air. Experimentally, she sends a repulsor blast at a robot near the edge of the swarm. It hits and the robot becomes a beautiful orange fireball, blossoming skywards. A few of the surrounding robots are a little singed, their pale heads blackened on one side. To Carol, they look like clowns halfway through applying their makeup.

“What do you know, they do explode,” muses Stark.

“You couldn't take my word for it, why?” asks Carol, diving towards the throng. She grabs a couple in each hand, flies them high and drops them on to the robots below.

“I like to be sure before doing something like _this_.” Several more robots explode, when Tasha shoots them, half a dozen fireballs soaring up.

Down below them, the familiar clang of Cap's shield colliding with something metallic can be heard. It slices the through the robots expertly, cleaving them in two. Although he and Jess are surrounded on all sides, they manage to hold their ground as the robots come at them. One slips past Cap's defenses, wraps its legs around him from behind and clamps its spindly arms either side of his head. It wrenches hard, trying to snap his neck. He scrabbles at it, trying to pry it off him but it grips tighter, refusing to move, forcing his neck in to an unnatural angle. Another three go for him but he punches them away, all the while wrestling with the one clinging to his back. No matter what he tries, he can't seem to shift it. Jess can't help him, she's too busy fighting off her own robots, and Tasha's tactic of blowing them up would cause too much damage, so it's up the Carol.

She drops the robots in her hands on the head of a group twenty feet below. They land with a satisfying crunch but Carol doesn't stop to appreciate her handiwork, she's already diving for Steve. Landing behind him, she takes its ovular head between her hands and crushes it. Initially, it creaks under the force but, as Carol's much stronger than it is solid, it shatters in her hands, electrical innards flying everywhere. Now free of its control unit, the robot's grip loosens so Steve shucks the remains of it off, before slamming his shield in to another oncoming robot.

“Tasha,” he calls up, kicking another one's legs out from under it. “I'm sorry, I was being controlling.”

“You're doing this _now_?” Jess cries. Another robot goes for her but she back-flips over it then twists its head off.

“If it's between you and kids, then it's you every time.” His elbow connects with one trying to sneak up on his side. “We need to discuss it properly but I wanted you to know that before you see Ty again. I am yours and I'm not going anywhere, you got that?”

“Again, could you not have done this _before_ the exploding robots?” shouts Jess, feinting left before slipping between a robot's legs and kicking it over.

“I'm not going back to him, Steve,” Tasha calls, ignoring Jess and blowing up a cluster of robots. “Whatever is wrong with us, I'm not stupid, I'm not doing that again.”

“I know that.” He smashes two together. “It's not about being stupid. After what he did, I don't want you going in there thinking I haven't got your back.”

Carol's formed a pile of spent robots on the ground. When she goes to grab another handful, she realizes they've almost run out of them.

“As much as I hate to break things up,” Carol announces to Steve and Tasha. “I think we're nearly done here.”

“Hey, you're right,” says Jess. The throng of robots in front of her is no more than three deep. “No more explodi-bots.”

“Explodi-bots?” inquires Tasha.

“You got a better name for them?”

“Explodi-bots it is then,” declares Carol.

Steve throws his shield out one last time, felling the remaining robots. Beside him, Tasha and Carol come in to land. They're surrounded by a sea of twisted mechanical limbs, smashed heads and broken bodies. Jess picks her way over the remains to join them.

“That is a lot of robots,” Steve observes.

“Eighteen-hundred and seventy-four,” answers Tasha automatically. “But who's counting?”

“Why so many?” Carol wonders. “You don't need all those just to guard the place, do you?”

“They're not guards, they're executioners,” she murmurs. They all turn to look at her and she shrugs, the small movement exaggerated in the armor. “You're two honeymooners on the run, you've helped Ty out, he promises you a private jet. One problem, as far as he's concerned: you know too much. So, he lures you here to kill you. This many were hard work for four of us but two? They'd overwhelm you. You know what else, I bet he watched the whole thing. I bet he's watching right now.”

Stark takes off again, coming to a stop in midair several yards away from Carol's pile of broken robots. One repulsor blast and the heap explodes, mushrooming in to a huge ball of flame. Then, she zooms over the debris, blowing up as much as she can hit. All around them, destroyed robots blast apart and burn, leaving the parking lot glowing orange.

“You see that!” Tasha shouts at the building as she hovers above the flames. “Take a good look, Ty, 'cause I'm coming for you, you son of a bitch.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter in end notes.

 “What is this place?” asks Jess, as they move their way cautiously in to the building.

“At this present moment, not a clue,” replies Tasha. “Ty's a genius, he could've done almost anything to the building. But it used to be -” She tilts her head to one side, probably processing data as she reconnects to a Stark satellite. “Huh, turns out it used to be used for energy research. There's records saying that all the equipment's been removed but...”

“But?” prompts Steve, as he pauses to check around a corner.

“I've hacked the database of the company that did the work – don't look at me like that Steve, it makes you look constipated – there were no wages paid in the time period and nothing about what happened to the equipment afterward. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it's all still here.”

When they found the front door blocked by a large piece of rebar, Steve kicked in a fire escape. Now, they're working their way down a corridor which – for all Tasha's suggestion that this was some kind of experimental power plant – is pitch black. At least, it would be, were it not for the light emanating from Carol's fists. The armor has a flashlight too but Carol is brighter, illuminating every gray surface and dingy corner. Thankfully, the corridor is mostly clear of debris which makes it easier for them to move quickly, with Tasha navigating them through the building by the plans she's 'acquired'. Although they do check each side room and crevice for threats as they go, just to be safe, they're not expecting to find anything until they reach Tiberius.

“If it's all still here, that's probably where he'll be, right?” suggests Carol.

“Yeah,” Tasha agrees. “We need be heading downwards, I think.”

As they round another corner, they suddenly hear a clicking against the concrete. Immediately, they stop, tense, ready for another fight, fists, repulsors and shields all raised.

A lone rat scurries across the hallway in front of them. All is quiet again. Carol releases a breath she wasn't aware she was holding.

Beside her, Jess, who was standing, has attached herself to the wall. Instead of climbing down, Jess remains there as they as they start to move forward again.

“You okay up there?” Carol asks, amusement seeping in to her voice.

“Yep.” Jess sounds just a little too strained.

“Rats, huh?”

“Bite me, Carol.” There's no friendly humor to Jess's words. Carol thinks she hears pain behind the anger; she's messed this up so badly. This is Jess pushing her away, she knows it is, and she doesn't know the right way to fix it.

The group reaches the end of the corridor – Jess still clinging to the wall, keeping her distance from Carol – and proceeds cautiously down a flight of stairs. Although the staircase itself is surrounded on all sides by walls, at the bottom, Carol can see a door. Dancing on the opposite wall, through the pane of safety glass, are flickering lights.

Ushering them to a stop, Steve then creeps towards the door, staying low and keeping his back to the wall for safety. He checks through the window but, not seeing any threats, beckons them forward. When they enter the room, he keeps his shield raised, just in case.

On the other side of the door, the room smells odd, too dry, like something sucked all the moisture out of the air. Although devoid of any furnishings, along one wall is a window. Instead of glass, it has a mesh grate which, when Carol raises her fists so they can see clearly, they find looks out over a cavernous space. The flickering lights they saw from the staircase emanate from the blinking lights of machinery, stretching as far as the eye can see below them. It's a production line, which would normally be assembling the white faced robots. Hundreds of them, in various stages of completion, sit patiently on the silent assembly line. Carol decides the still, half-completed figures are even creepier than the finished ones, with their unnatural movements and blank faces.

“That's not scary in the least,” mutters Jess.

“Most of them aren't even half built,” Tasha points out. “They can't walk, let alone attack us. And anyway, this isn't where Ty is. This might need power but not as much as this place can produce. He's not just building robots, there's something else here and that's where we'll find him.”

They carry on through the building, down dark corridors, winding their way along enclosed staircases, always alert for any more presents from Tiberius Stone. Finally, they reach a hallway, leading to a door that Tasha assures them is their target. She and Carol hang back while Steve goes ahead, Jess following him closely behind on the ceiling, stealthy and deadly silent, to steal a first look at what lays in wait. Hearing nothing that concerns him on the other side, he tries the handle. Surprised to find it locked, he prepares to kick it down and everyone readies themselves for what will inevitably follow as his boot connects with the door.

Which is nothing.

No one charges them, nobody starts shooting, and nothing explodes. Instead, soft, classical music floats out at them.

“Please come in,” says a voice from inside the room. “And, if you'd be so kind as to pick up my door, I'd be very grateful.”

Along the hallway, Carol sees Steve's face twist in to a snarl of fury. If the mere mention of Tiberius Stone is enough to make Steve angry, it's nothing in comparison to the effect hearing the man's voice has on him. She can't say for certain, the armor conceals too much of Tasha's body language to say for sure, but she thinks Tasha briefly froze up beside her at the sound.

“Why do I feel like we're about to walk in the a trap?” she mutters to Tasha.

“Because we are,” Tasha replies, as they move down the hall to rejoin Steve and Jess. “He wouldn't invite us in if he didn't have one waiting for us. Trust me, this isn't the first time he's done this to me.”

“Anything we should know?”

“Be ready for anything,” supplies Steve. Then, he meets Tasha's gaze and says, “And don't trust a word he says.”

They edge their way in to the laboratory, Tasha and Steve slightly ahead of her and Jess. It's not dissimilar to Tony's workshop, cluttered and filled with pieces of machinery she doesn't recognize. Set in the middle of the room is a large metal box, humming quietly. In front of it, Stone waits for them with open arms.

He's exactly how Mike described him – blond haired and blue eyed – with broad shoulders and slim hips. Even in this grubby room, he wears close fitting slacks and the pink button through of a man comfortable with his own masculinity. The moment he sees her, his eyes lock on to Iron Man.

“ _Tasha_ ,” Stone purrs, all fondness and warm familiarity.

From the hard set of Steve's jaw, Carol suspects he'd very much like to punch him, to remind Stone that he lost all rights to speak to Steve's wife like that. He doesn't, though. Instead he maintains his position by Tasha's side, following her lead.

“Ty,” she responds, voice inhumanly even through the suit. “I'm disappointed, I thought you were dead.”

He looks genuinely hurt, like the idea that Tasha might wish him dead is unthinkable.

“Why do you say things like that?” he asks, sounding confused. “This is him talking isn't it? He's messing with your head, Tasha, turned you against me. Why do you think I tried so hard to get you away from him?”

The noise that emanates from the armor sounds like an electronically mangled snort of derision.

“You really are something else -” she starts but Stone cuts across her.

“Can I- Please take off the helmet. I can't trust anything you say through that thing. How do I know he's not making you say it, hmm?”

Tasha looks across to Steve for reassurance, who gives her a curt nod of assent.

“You're asking his permission?” scoffs Stone. “And you expect me to believe he really wants what's best for you.”

It's the sincerity that really wrong-foots Carol. In her mind, Carol created an idea of who she thought this man might be. The imagined Stone wasn't exactly a rabid thug, who held Tasha down until she yielded to his wishes, but he came closer to that man more often than the one in front of her does. This one, he's so charming, so concerned for Tasha's welfare, that, if Carol didn't know the truth, she would completely believe his fiction.

With the quiet hiss of the helmet detaching from the rest of the armor, Tasha is face to face with the man who tried to destroy her. If Carol had any doubts left about this woman, they are swept away and replaced by utter respect.

“I wasn't asking his permission, Ty,” Tasha explains, voice laced with a calm she probably isn't feeling. “I was asking the tactical advice of someone whose opinion I respect. We didn't come here to go over all this again. In fact, I think you know exactly why we're here.”

A small amount of cockiness flits across his face and it's just enough to convince Carol, once and for all, that his earnestness is nothing but a facade, all part of an attempt to exercise his power over Tasha.

“Mr Drew's been telling tales, hasn't he?” Stone sighs. “He's lying to you, gorgeous. You wouldn't have put him away if he wasn't unstable – prone to delusions, even. Whatever he told you, I promise you he made it up.”

“Then how did we find you?” Carol points out, crossing her arms in front of her.

He holds his hands up. “I admit I went to see him – I don't deny that – but it was to talk. If he wanted something other than the Avengers when he got better, I told him to come see me and -”

“Enough, Ty!” Tasha spits, finally loosing her cool. She takes a step toward him and raises a gauntleted hand at him. “Enough of the lies, enough of the bullshit, I've heard enough of it to last me a lifetime. It won't work anymore. Tell me the truth and I might not blast you.”

“That'll kill him,” Steve murmurs to her. “We don't kill.”

“I don't care,” she growls.

“Yes, you do. Not for him, sure. You'd care that you'd done it, though, killed someone for revenge.” He places a hand on her armored arm. “I want to see him suffer too – believe me I do – but you need to bring your brain back online.”

They have one of their complex, wordless conversations that Carol will never understand as long as she lives. It ends with Tasha nodding and lowering her hand.

“You try anything funny, Ty, and I will shoot you,” Tasha declares. Then, she adds, “Or one of these two ladies will.”

“Which rather neatly brings us to what I want to know. What does bringing them -” Steve gestures over his shoulder to Carol and Jess. “- here have to do with you and my wife?”

“Nothing,” Stone states simply.

“What did I say about your bullshit, Ty?” snarls Tasha, looking dangerous. “Don't forget, there's four of us and one of you.”

He quickly clarifies. “Them coming here has nothing to do with her. It was purely experimentation and business. Drew had something I wanted – namely, information on the two of you – and I potentially had a way to get him something he wanted. It wasn't perfect but I think I came off better in the trade.”

“How?” asks Steve. “And what did he give you?”

“He was so desperate, he gave me everything. Anything I asked, he told.” All of his charm has gone now and Carol can finally see the nasty little man Stone is underneath it. An attractive, articulate, intelligent man, sure, but a nasty little man nonetheless. “Every man has his price, Captain, I just happened to find his. In return, I got him his love back. Gave me the perfect opportunity to try out my new device with a specific target.”

“Are you saying we were, what, your _test run_?” frowns Jess.

“More like _a_ test run. I went through a few Carols before I got the two of you here – which wasn't planned by the way, I was only aiming for her.”

“We figured as much,” states Tasha. “So if she wasn't your goal, what were all the tests for?”

Stone chuckles. “I wasn't going to risk you, now was I? He might have taken you from me but, if I can bring people across universes, why shouldn't I have a Tasha Stark all of my own?”

“You're gonna _kidnap_ a Natasha?” asks Steve. He almost sounds disbelieving but, given that he knows this guy, only almost.

“Nothing that crass. I am simply going bring a Natasha here who needs me. She might not realize it straight away but, in time, she'll come around.”

“Jesus Christ,” Tasha mutters to herself. Then, something seems to dawn on her and she says louder, “You haven't found one yet. If you had, she'd be here. In all the infinite universes, you can't find another Natasha Stark.”

“Infinity is a very big number,” Stone tells her but, from the slight tremor to his voice, Carol can tell it's shaken him, that Tasha's figured it out. “I just have to keep looking, I'll find her.”

“I'm unique and you can't have me. I bet that rankles, doesn't it, Ty. All that hard work, you get a perfect way to travel between universes, and, at the last hurdle, you fail. You go looking for Tasha and all you find is _Tony_. He won't do, of course, because you've never been one to bend over and take it. As I recall you were always much happier making other people -”

“That right there, Tasha, that was always our problem,” he snaps. Carol knows at that moment, from the way he's trying to change the subject, that Tasha's got him. “Anything that was wrong with us was as much your fault as mine. You say all this shit, wind me up, act like I don't love you -”

He's abruptly cut off by Steve's roar of fury and a shield soaring through the air, just narrowly missing his head.

“ _Love_? Your problem is you throw around words that you have never and will never understand,” Steve rumbles. Carol's only seen that look on Steve a few times. It's the look of a man ready to walk headfirst in to a shower of bullets, if that's what it takes; Stone should be very afraid. “We came here to find out how to get Captain Marvel and Spider-Woman back to their world, not listen to you rehash your twisted beliefs about what constitutes a relationship.”

“And here I thought we could keep things civilized,” Stone sighs, sounding disappointed as he reaches in to his pocket.“Ah well.”

There's an ominous little click that Carol realizes comes from Stone. Then, they're rushed by a flood of the half-built explodi-bots they saw earlier. There are so many of them, they push the four of them up against the wall, a mass of them from floor to ceiling. Carol tries to push them away from her but, even with her strength, the robots are packed too tightly and there's nowhere for them to go, they must be filling the room. The others are hidden behind a sea mechanical parts. She can't see them, only hear their anguished shouts. The whole thing reminds her of being in a very unfun ball-pit. She silently curses the explosive properties of the machines; if she blasts any of them there's no telling the damage they would do to the people around her, the building and their chances of getting home.

“I thought you said they couldn't attack us!” Jess shouts from somewhere to Carol's left, voice muffled by the robots.

“There is always a small margin of error in any statement,” Tasha shouts back. “In this case -”

“You go it wrong!” Jess finishes for her, sounding angry. “Now how do we get out?”

“Swim!” instructs Steve.

“What?”

“They're not attacking us, just holding us back while Ty makes his escape,” he points out. “Go straight ahead, there was a door at the back of the room behind. I think that's where he's gone.”

There's a hideous groaning of metal against metal and the unpleasant screech of plastic against plastic as Steve starts to move his way through the tightly packed robots. Carol begins to follow him but it's slow going. The problem is that these irregularly shaped machines do not slide nicely against each other like the balls of a ball-pit. Limbs snag, heads catch and bodies clash, as Carol tries to push the ones ahead of her around and behind her. Along with that, she has to handle them carefully. She doesn't know when too much force one way or the other could cause them to go boom.

She almost screams when she feels a hand close around her ankle. The hand resettles further up her calf, pulling it's owner along with it. When it finds its way to the muscles of her thigh, Carol can turn just enough to see it is red-gloved and attached to Jess, whose head is just starting to poke through the mass of robots. Realizing it's Carol she's grabbed, Jess pulls her hand away quickly but Carol catches it, hauling Jess towards her. The other arm, she loops around Jess's waist, drawing her close so that, together, they take up as little space as possible amongst the robots. Jess is tense, uncomfortable being this physically close to Carol – and she knows that's all her own stupid fault – but they manage to work together, fighting their way through.

Finally, the meager light filtering between the robots gets stronger. They force their way through the final few feet towards it and fall out in to a brightly lit room. Or they would do, if Carol didn't roll them at the last moment, hovering just off the floor, so Jess lands bodily on top of her. They're chest to chest, Carol's arm still holding Jess close. Jess pulls back a little and her mouth is right there, all Carol has to do is lean up and -

Someone clears their throat. Steve stands behind them, looking at them expectantly. When she sees him, Carol rights them and guiltily loosens her grip. Jess scrambles away from her, heading for the other side of the room, putting distance between them again. Carol's heart sinks a little.

At that moment, Natasha Stark comes barreling, through the narrow doorway, out of the throng of robots, coming to a stop in the middle of the room.

“You took your time,” gripes Jess.

Tasha looks completely unfazed. “The most important person is always the last to the party,” she smirks. “Everyone knows that and, hello, what is that sexy beast?”

She is looking straight past her husband to the machine behind him. To Carol, looks like the kind of old-fashioned computers that took punch-cards, a cobbled together mess of parts that takes up an entire wall. Tasha, however, is looking at like she wants to tear its underwear off with her teeth – and there's a mental image Carol never wanted.

“Surely the important thing is, where's Tiberius?” points out Steve.

“If that's what I think it is then I'd say he's long gone,” Tasha replies.

“Sp that was a distraction while he made his escape?” asks Carol.

“Point to the blonde.” She doesn't take her eyes off the machine. “Come to momma.”

“Tasha, honey, you're talking to electronics again,” Steve reminds her.

She waves him away, approaching the computer bank carefully. There's a small screen set in the front of it and, when Tasha reads it, she sighs, before turning back to them.

“Yeah, he's gone. Gone to a whole other universe.” She sounds somewhere between relieved and resigned. “But we've got his machine. This is how he got you here and this is how we get you home.”

* * *

Turns out, sending them home isn't as simple as pressing a few buttons and pointing them in the right direction. Or it could be but, given that Stone designed the system, there are no guarantees he hasn't left any nasty surprises or that everything does what it says it does. All this means that the machine is carted off to Reed Richards, for him and Tasha to strip apart and run tests on, while Carol and Jess wait for them to finish.

It's two days in to their waiting around when Tasha finds Carol, in the communal kitchen, preparing breakfast. Tasha's wrapped in a long, swishy robe with a very obvious mark on her neck that she's made no attempt to hide. She grabs a mug and fills it with coffee from the pot before propping herself up on the counter.

“Reed thinks we should have a lock on your home world by the end of today,” she tells Carol, taking a sip of her coffee. “I think he doesn't know what he's talking about and we'll have it by lunchtime but, either way, we're pretty much ready when you are.”

“Great. Then me and Jess can be out of your hair,” says Carol, smiling.

“And how is Ms Drew this fine morning?”

“She's... fine,” Carol replies, hoping Tasha doesn't notice the tremor in her voice. In truth, she has no idea how Jess is. Other than a few necessary pleasantries, Jess has barely said two words to her since they got back to the tower. Jess went to bed after Carol the last two nights and she has no idea where Jess spends her days. Trying to find her feels like prying, given that Jess is deliberately avoiding her. Carol suspects that, if they weren't sharing a room, she wouldn't see her at all.

“Mhmm.” Tasha raises a knowing eyebrow at her. She takes another mouthful of coffee before saying, “Steve says I have you to thank, by the way.”

“For what?”

“Getting my husband to pull his head out of his ass. Figuring out most of what was going on here when we were too busy arguing with each other to. Saving my marriage.”

“I didn't -”

“Happy's death was a nice touch by the way.” She must see Carol's shocked expression because she carries on, “Yes, I know how you got Pepper to talk. I know _that_ you got Pepper to talk, which is impressive in itself. After you did, I got something of a... talking to, would be putting it politely. The gist of it was that I had to leave him or fix it but, either way, I had to do it now before someone got hurt. Then it turns out you've had roughly the same – slightly less threatening – conversation with Steve.” She takes another sip. “We've still not sorted the kids thing – and it was never about that anyway – but we've stopped fighting about all the stuff that doesn't matter... and I think we might need to order a new mattress.”

“It wasn't about -” Carol stops herself. She knows she has no right to trespass further on their privacy – although she really didn't need to know the mattress thing – but her curiosity is demanding to be satisfied and, if they're leaving today, this might be her last chance. “I thought it was all about Steve wanting kids and you not?”

Natasha Stark gives her a steady, contemplative look, as though thinking of the best way to answer her. Carol half expects her to tell her to mind her own damn business, which she would be well within her rights to do, but she doesn't.

Instead she says carefully, “You did your research, right? Then you know plenty about the woman I was – the drinking, the sex, the complete disregard for my personal well-being and other people’s feelings. The only expectations that woman had were to die wealthy and alone. Marriage, a family, those were things other people got, not me. Then I got Steve and suddenly that whole world was open to me. I got to choose those things for myself if I wanted them. I chose to get married but... children? That's scary in a whole different way. Honestly, I have no idea if I want them or not but it has to be _my_ choice to make, and as much as I love him, Steve can't make it for me. So that's what it was about, him trying to take that choice away from me, whether he meant to or not.” She stares down in to her coffee for a moment before looking back at Carol, all dazzling Tasha charm again. “Sorry, that wasn't what you asked. Short answer: he wants them, I need more time to figure it out, we're both too damn stubborn. Good. I need to get over to the Baxter Building. We'll let you know when we're ready for you.”

Tasha strides from the kitchen without another word, leaving Carol feeling like, even if she had another decade in this world, she could never truly understand the multifaceted Natasha Stark.

* * *

Carol gets the call that they're ready for them around mid-afternoon – a little later than she predicted, much to Tasha's annoyance – and, after a brief but unsuccessful search for Jess, flies over to the Baxter Building. Along with Tasha and Reed, Steve and Jess are already there and waiting.

Although she knows it's irrational – these people are geniuses, after all – seeing them standing there, surrounded by equipment she doesn't understand, she suddenly feels uncertain. Maybe it's fear of the unknown or maybe she's just seen one too many technical glitches bring down an entire mission. Either way, she's a little nervous.

“You sure about this?” she asks. “I mean, it'll work, right? We won't find ourselves somewhere even more bizarre?”

“There's no guarantees, of course -” begins Reed.

Tasha cuts across him. “You've had me working on this – notice how I'm politely ignoring that you implied I'm bizarre – and if that isn't enough for you, then be assured we're not using Ty's machine. We've taken his data and, now we know where you're from, we're sending you back with Reed's doohickey.”

“'Doohickey'?” asks Steve, sounding amused.

“Stargate, dimension portal, Alice's looking glass, whatever you want to call it.” She waves a dismissive hand in his direction before turning, more seriously, to Carol. “I promise you this will work, we'll have you home in no time. Although, if you want...” She trails off, looking unsure.

Steve steps towards Carol, places one hand on her shoulder and meets her eyes, before saying, “I think what my wife is trying to say is: if you wanted to stay, you would be more than welcome.” He glances over to Jess. “Both of you.”

“I can't speak for Jess but, I'm sorry, I can't,” says Carol, trying not to let the sadness she feels seep in to her voice. “I know we're very alike, Steve, but I'm not her. You have all these memories of your friend that I know nothing about.”

“We could make new ones,” he tries.

“No, we couldn't. If I stayed, I'd always be a version of her, never me.”

“And I'd always be Mike with lady parts,” interjects Jess.

Carol nods. “Mike couldn't let her go, that's why I'm here. Don't clutch at her ghost like he did.” Then, smiling warmly, she adds, “Besides, if we stay, who's gonna knock Steve and Tony's heads together?”

He hesitates briefly before wrapping her in firm hug. It's warm and a little more affectionate than she would expect from her Steve but she takes it, gently squeezing him back.

“Take care, Carol” he says as he draws back. “And take care of them.”

“No,” she states. “They are grown-ass men, they can look after themselves. But I'll have their backs, I'll be their friend when they need me to and I'll pull them out of the fire when I have to.”

“Can't ask more than that,” he smiles.

They turn back to rest of the group. Tasha, who Carol would expect to be staring jealous daggers at her, merely lounges against a desk, watching Carol and her husband with an affectionate quirk to her lips. However, Jess is deliberately looking elsewhere, arms crossed across her body.

“Is there anything else left to do?” Carol asks.

“Everything's set up,” says Reed from his terminal. “All you have to do is step in to that ring over there and we will have you on your way.”

He gestures to an area in the middle of a room, no bigger than a large coffee table, with a metallic floor and raised lip. Carol takes her place in it then Jess stands beside her, arms still crossed, several inches between them. They look across at Reed and to where Tasha and Steve have taken up position behind him. For some reason Carol can't fathom, Tasha is looking at her apologetically. Several seconds pass where nothing happens.

“You need to be in physical contact with each other,” Reed states, unlike Tasha, seemingly unaware of the awkwardness that might cause.

What Carol wants to do is take Jess's hand. Or wrap an arm around her waist and hold her close. Or even scoop her up in her arms, for Jess to wind an arm around her neck, and bury her face in that dark hair, get lost in the sweet smell of her.

What she gets is a single hand gripping her bicep, Jess staying exactly where she is. Carol can't decide what hurts more, the force of the hold on her arm or that distance between them.

Reed begins his countdown. “Five, four, three, two -”

The last thing Carol sees, before the world goes white again, is Tasha and Steve sneaking glances at each other like a pair of besotted teenagers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Abusive ex-boyfriend, references to abusive relationship.


	7. Chapter 7

When they awake, it's on the floor of the rec room in the tower. Clearly, Tasha and Reed decided to return them to somewhere familiar and Carol's grateful for that, she really is, but she could do without the group of concerned faces leaning over them. There's only a handful of Avengers – Steve and Tony among them – but, flat on her back, she feels undignified.

Jess is slumped warm against her on the floor but, as soon as Jess comes to, she groans and pulls away from her. Sitting up, Carol rubs her eyes. Steve – she really hopes it's her Steve – crouches down in front of them.

“Did they get it right?” she asks. “Please tell me this is the right universe.”

“Last time we saw you – last time _anyone_ saw you – you were fighting robots outside a church,” Steve tells them. “Next thing your team knows, the two of you and all the robots disappeared. There's been no sign of you or the robots since. That was days ago.”

Carols smiles with relief. “Yeah, we're home.”

The inevitable question of what happened to them comes shortly after. Carol briefly debates the best way to explain... everything. Jess beats her to it, laying it out in the least subtle terms possible.

“We were kidnapped by Stark's psycho ex so he could give us to a damaged Avenger in exchange for information.”

“ _Jess_ ,” Carol protests. “That's... actually that's pretty much what happened. Not how I'd put it but yeah. Stark's ex, he was trying to find another version of her so he could turn her in to his enslaved girlfriend and have his happily-ever-after. We were just one of his successful experiments with the technology.”

“Wait, are you saying you were in a universe where I was a girl?” asks Tony. When Jess nods, he adds, “Is she hot?”

“Really, Tony,” Steve grumbles.

“Hey, doing it with yourself is the same a masturbation, everyone knows that.”

Carol hears Jess mutter something that sounds a lot like, “In every damn universe.”

“You could sleep with her, Tony,” Carol says, a little louder than necessary. “But I doubt her husband, _Captain America_ , would be too pleased.”

The two men look straight at each other then, simultaneously, look away. Carol glances between them, at the way they're both deliberately looking elsewhere, and smirks to herself.

* * *

They don't keep them at the tower much longer. Jess disappears off with a perfunctory, “See you,” leaving Carol to fly home alone. When she gets to her apartment, she finds a handwritten note slipped under her front door.

> I have fed Chewie. Mom says I ~~shu~~ should bill you.
> 
> Hope you had fun on your adventire.
> 
> Kit x

That makes Carol smile, grateful that someone has been looking after Chewie while she's been away. She'll drop a few dollars round for Kit tomorrow to say thank you. It will probably be spent on candy but, at least with cash, there's the option she'll save it.

Said cat is curled, sleeping, on the couch. Carol slumps down next to her and runs a hand through the thick coat, burrowing her fingers deep in the warm fur. Chewie stirs slightly, before purring happily, deep in her chest.

“Miss me, beautiful?” she murmurs. The purrs continue uninterrupted. “No, thought not. But, hey, least you don't hate me, right?”

Chewie's answer is to stretch herself out, back bowed, tail twitching. As she stretches her front paws, she flexes her claws, digs them in to Carol's thigh and begins to sharpen them on the fabric of Carol's pants.

“Thanks, Chewie,” she sighs.

Jess wants nothing to do with her, Carol knows that. During the wait to come home, Jess shunned her company. She avoided talking to her, and, when they had to speak, it was brief and curt. So Carol made the decision to leave her alone, not wanting to force herself on Jess when she's not welcome.

Even so, Jess is her best friend and she misses her. She misses just sitting and talking. Misses the way Jess mocks her on her choice of foods and looks longingly at chocolate cake. So help her, she even misses how Jess is the one to call her on her bullshit. Jess has enough shit of her own but, Carol always knew, Jess would be there if she needed her.

Which is why Carol falters in her resolve. If Jess wants to talk to her again, that should be Jess's choice to make, not Carol's. But, after two weeks of silence, Carol can't take it any more.

She picks up her phone and sends Jess a message.

_Chewie is playing with a huge spider in my bathroom. I think she misses you._

A half hour later, it chirps to indicate a reply.

_You sure she hasn't mistaken it for Peter?_

Carol smiles to herself.

_Nope, definitely pining for you._

Just hearing from her, Carol can almost believe everything is alright between them again. Without stopping to think, she sends a follow up message.

_Come see for yourself if you don't believe me._

Straight away, her phone chirps again.

_Can't have Chewie suffering without me. I'll be there in an hour._

Carol's stunned it was that easy. She has no idea what she does for then next hour; if any of it was important or noteworthy, she doesn't remember it. The next thing she knows, Jess is standing in her living room, hands stuffed in to the pockets of her jeans.

Carol swallows, not sure what she wants to say first. Jess looks good, the floral pattern of her chiffon shirt bringing out the pink of her cheeks. Carol's suddenly conscious of the fact she's still wearing sweats and her favorite baggy t-shirt.

“Hey girl,” Jess says to Chewie, only briefly glancing at Carol before walking over to where she's sunning herself on the window ledge. “I hear you like spiders. Well, you can have me to play with but, if you try to eat me, I will zap you so hard you'll look like you had a bad encounter with a Van Der Graff. Deal?”

Chewie seems to agree to her terms, if the little affection seeking headbutt she gives Jess's outstretched hand is anything to go by.

“Jess -” Carol begins tentatively.

“You know what I don't get?” Jess says over her, gazed focused on where she's petting Chewie. “The names. I know there isn't really a male version of Jessica but why Natasha and Penny? Why not Antonia and Henrietta?”

“What?” Carol asks, slightly baffled. Jess hasn't spoken to her properly for over two weeks and, for some reason, that is what she wants to talk about.

“It's been bugging me, that's all,” Jess shrugs.

Carol goes with it, grateful at least that Jess is talking to her. “Take it from someone with two brothers: my mom picked out different names every time, so she had all her bases covered. Pretty sure none of them were the female variants.”

“Jess and Luke did it,” Jess points out.

“Yeah but I think Jess and Luke are the exception to the rule.” Then she concedes, “Actually, Jess and Luke seem to be the exception to most rules.”

“Speaking of rules,” Jess smirks. “What do Stone, Johnny Storm and Steve all have in common?”

“You mean, aside from all being people Tasha slept with?”

“Along with that. Blond hair and blue eyes?” Jess says, like it should be obvious.

Carol bites back a laugh. “Are you saying she has a type?”

“Either that or she kept picking men who look like her husband.”

“That's... Is that a bit sad or kinda sweet?”

“Tasha is not someone who 'sweet' will ever apply to. I doubt anyone called her that, even as a kid.”

Carol's imagination generously gifts her an image of a tiny Tasha Stark, dark hair in bunches, menacingly brandishing a screwdriver.

At that moment, Chewie decides, while she greatly enjoys having her ears scratched and finds attention to anywhere along her back intensely satisfying, her belly is a no go zone, regardless of whether she's bared it or not. When Jess doesn't understand that from a simple swat of her paw and returns her fingers to the soft fur, Chewie sinks her teeth in to Jess's hand, causing Jess to cry out. Carol rushes over to them and, satisfied that Jess won't be attempting that again, Chewie hops down and wanders casually away, like savaging a guest is a perfectly normal reaction to irritation.

“Are you okay?” Carol says, rushing over and reaching for Jess's hand. “Let me see.”

Jess lets Carol take it in her own, examining it carefully. Chewie hasn't broken the skin – it was no more than a nip – probably more surprising than painful.

“You're not actually going to zap my cat, are you?” Carol asks.

“Repeatedly,” Jess replies without any conviction. “Stupid ball of fur will be so fried she'll get mistaken for a porcupine.”

Carol still has Jess's undamaged hand and gently rubs her thumb across the knuckles. Jess stares down at their joined hands but makes no move to pull away.

“Hey, Jess?” Carol says, voice soft.

“Yeah?” responds Jess.

“We alright?”

Jess just shrugs, eyes deliberately looking somewhere over Carol's shoulder. If Carol needed any more reason to just come out and say it, the slump of Jess's shoulders is it.

“That stuff I said to Mike,” Carol murmurs. “All that stuff about separating us, how it would hurt you – hurt both of us – that we come as a pair. I wasn't just... You know I wasn't just saying that for his benefit, don't you? It worked but it wasn't me bullshitting.”

Cautious green eyes briefly flick to Carol's face.

“If he wanted a universe where we're not-” Carol tries before stalling. The words should be easy to say but the strength of feeling behind them holds them down. She tries again. “Where we aren't meant- Where- Well, this isn't one of those worlds, okay. And I'm sorry it took me so long to work that out.”

Jess's hand, previously unresponsive when cradled in Carol's, grips back, a little firmer than she probably intended.

“I'm immune to toxins,” Jess says, voice rough, eyes still on somewhere behind Carol.

“I know,” Carol whispers. “I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.”

The hand Carol isn't holding comes around and thumps her on the arm. Thankfully, it's not hard enough for Jess to do any damage to herself but the force of it tells Carol how hurt she feels.

Almost as though she had damaged it, Carol takes Jess's fist in her other hand, uncurls it and inspects it, just like she did with the other one. Then, one by one, she raises Jess's hands to her mouth and places a soft kiss on the knuckles of each.

Only then does Jess finally look at her. It's still warily though, like any moment Carol is going to change her mind and reject her again. That's more than she can bear.

Carol leans forward, hands still clasped between them, and presses her lips to Jess's. It's firmer than when Jess kissed her, an attempt to convey how sorry she is, how much she wants her and all the other things she's no good at saying.

When Carol pulls away, it's only to make sure that Jess is alright, that she hasn't overstepped their rapidly redefining boundaries. Jess's brow furrows slightly with confusion and her tongue slips out to moisten her lips as she leans towards Carol again.

This time, Carol is the one being kissed but it lacks the confidence of Jess's earlier attempt. It begins gentle, with a soft press of lips. She does that again, just brushing over the surface of Carol's mouth. Carol lets her do it once more before she pushes back, opening her mouth a little, and Jess takes the opportunity to nip at her bottom lip.

Carol drops Jess's hands and, before Carol has a chance to decide what she wants to do with hers, Jess's arms encircle her waist, closing the space between them. She slips her tongue past Carol's lips, probing gently, deepening the kiss, becoming more confident as Carol responds with little licks of her own. It's not enough though, Carol wants more, wants to be closer to her. She brings one hand up to the back of Jess's head, steadying her, so Carol can invade her mouth, savoring every warm taste.

Their kisses become more forceful, now that they finally have this, neither willing to pull away, both trying to do, taste, feel everything all at once, becoming a jumble of clashing noses, lips, tongues. The hand not in Jess's hair finds her behind, pulls them closer together as Carol pushes her hips forward, desperate to be as close to her as possible, to gain a little friction.

Without breaking the relentless exploration of each others mouths, Jess walks her backwards to the couch, pushes Carol down. The loss of Jess's body pressed against her, even with Jess leaning over her, still kissing her open-mouthed, leaves Carol feeling bereft. It's quickly rectified when Jess straddles her lap, dark hair tumbling over both their shoulders as Carol tilts her head back to meet Jess's mouth.

Jess rocks forward, raising herself up, chests brushing up against each other, bares her neck, giving Carol access to her collarbone. Taking the hint, Carol peppers it with whisper soft kisses before gently nipping at the pale skin just hard enough to mark. Overwhelmed by the pleasure of it, Jess's legs begin to tremble, no longer willing to support her weight. She starts to fall back but Carol wraps a strong arm under her rear, holding her up, delighted to be responsible for Jess's quaking.

Secure, Jess's own hands start to roam as Carol pulls her up high enough to nuzzle at the top swell of her breasts peeking out from between the opening of her blouse. At the first flick of Carol's tongue, Jess tips her head back, eyes closed, pushes her chest a little further towards Carol's mouth, breathing heavily. As she teases Jess's breasts with her mouth, Carol's spare hand cups one through the fabric of Jess's top, kneading gently, Jess's breathing deepening with every touch.

Carol pulls away a little, wanting to take in the sight of Jess flushed and panting, when she notices Jess's hands on her arms, rubbing up and down, pushing the sleeves of her tee up.

“What are you doing?” Carol murmurs against her skin.

“Nothing,” Jess breathes, eyes still closed, hands still moving. “Keep going.”

“Is this a thing? My arms?” To prove her point, she tenses them, flexing the muscles under Jess's hands. Jess all but whimpers. She mouths at Jess's breasts again before repeating the muscle flex, causing Jess to shudder.

Carol reaches for the buttons of Jess's top, wanting to take this further, wanting fewer clothes on Jess's beautiful body, but she hesitates.

“Can I -”she starts to ask.

“God yes,” Jess moans, surging down for a sloppy kiss.

Pressed together, Carol manages to get the first few buttons undone, even though they're fiddly little things and Jess's mouth plundering hers stops her from looking down at what she's doing. Her fingers keep loosing their grip, the buttons refusing to cooperate with her clumsy, lustful attempts. Frustrated, she tugs at the fabric, hoping the buttons will give in. They don't, so she tugs harder and is rewarded with the sound of fabric ripping.

Jess pulls back. “Did you just -”

“Yeah,” Carol replies.

Jess bursts out laughing before shucking off the shirt, which now has a large tear under one arm. Grinning, she kisses Carol again, playful, teasing her by going deep then pulling back to just out of Carol's reach, leaving her wanting more. Carol stretches up, tries to catch her mouth but Jess holds it a hair's breadth too far away before kissing her again, then pulling away, making Carol work for it.

Catching on to what Jess is doing, Carol dips her head and licks a strip between Jess's breasts. Jess cries out so Carol does it again, eliciting the same response. Figuring if she's that sensitive between them then the rest of her breasts must be more so, Carol uses one hand to unhook Jess's bra and the other to lift her up a little higher, giving her better access when the fabric falls away. She gives each one a tentative lick, enough to make Jess writhe in her lap. A few open-mouthed kisses pressed to the pliant flesh then Carol starts on her nipples, tonging one gently, swirling around it until it forms a hard little peak. She places her lips around it, sucks it in, teases it with her tongue, grazes it with a hint of teeth. Openly moaning, Jess is so lost to the sensation, were it not for Carol's strong arm holding her up, she would tumble off the couch.

Carol turns her attention to the other nipple as she eases Jess back enough that she can reach between them, runs the tips of her fingers over Jess's exposed stomach, down to the rough denim of her jeans. She rubs the back of her hand across the front of them and Jess bucks up in to the touch, wanting more. With a satisfied grin, she sucks a little harder on Jess's nipple, pops the button, eases down the zipper, snakes her hand past the waistband, slips her hand in between the denim and cotton layers, pressing firm against her through the fabric.

Jess's hands are everywhere now; on herself, on Carol, anywhere she can reach. They grab at the neckband of Carol's shirt, trying to get under it, get it off, so Carol pulls her hand free of Jess's pants, lets Jess drag her top off one arm and over her head, shifts Jess's weight to her free arm – unwilling to let Jess go but wanting rid of her clothes – and lets her shirt fall away. Both now naked above the waist, Jess crushes their mouths together, warm and wet, as Carol pulls at Jess's jeans, careful not to rip them too, easing them down over her hips.

She switches the arm supporting Jess again and moans in to Jess's mouth as fingers roam over her bare body. Her other hand works its way in to Jess's underwear, brushes over her clit, slides down between her thighs. Jess whimpers as Carol pushes the tip of one finger gently in to her, in to the warm and wet, heel of her hand resting on her pubic bone, pressing Jess's clit up against it. The angle's a little awkward but Carol's loathed to move, to have Jess pull away, afraid to find that anything this good might be a dream. So she keeps Jess in her arms and adds another fingertip, presses them both deeper. Jess kisses her harder.

She crooks her fingers, brushing her inner walls, causing Jess to cry out. As she pulls out she crooks them again before she pushes back in. Jess throws her head back, too far gone to concentrate on kissing, hands clutching at Carol's biceps again. With the heel of her hand, Carol rubs broad circles on the outside and long strokes on the inside. She mouths at Jess's breasts, eliciting another cry.

“Keep going,” Jess pants, writhing under Carols ministrations.

When she comes, it's with such force, Jess almost doubles over, nearly bucking out of Carol's grip as it rips through her. Carol doesn't think she's ever seen anything quite so beautiful.

Jess makes a disappointed little sound as Carol pulls her hand out but rewards her with a languid kiss, humming her contentment between them. As Carol looks around for something other than the couch cushions to wipe her hand on, Jess raises it to her mouth and licks the palm. Then, she takes each finger in her mouth, licks them clean, replacing one type of slick with another. Carol's whole arm tingles and if Jess can make just her hand feel that good then she wants that mouth on other parts of her.

Deciding she would like that now, please, but realizing the couch is not the best place for everything Carol has in mind, she stands, Jess still in her arms.

“Carol!” she shrieks, laughing, as her shoes and the jeans around her knees fall to the floor. “Put me down.”

Jess starts to struggle so Carol hoists her over her shoulder, fireman style and carries her towards the bedroom.

“I said, put me down!” She gives Carol's behind a playful swat. When Carol's stride falters, she does it again.

“Is that a thing?” Carol asks, then dumps her on the bed.

“It might be a thing,” Jess answers, sounding a little cautious. “Is it an okay thing?”

“I'd say it's a very okay thing.”

“Well okay then,” Jess grins, as Carol climbs on to the bed to join her. She leans down to kiss her but Jess pulls away.

Confused, she follows Jess's gaze to the armchair in the corner of the room, currently occupied by Chewie. The cat stares at them curiously. With a sigh, Carol gets up, scoops Chewie in to her arms and deposits her in the next room. Thankfully, she takes the hint and wanders off to find somewhere less exciting to sleep.

Returning to the bed, Jess pulls her down then flips them over and sucks on her neck, hard enough to mark on almost anyone else. Then she works her way down, licks in the recess of Carol's collar, nips and kisses across the soft flesh above her breasts, nuzzles hungrily at the underside of them.

Carol props herself up on her elbows when Jess moves away. She pulls off Carol's sweats and underpants in one movement then resettles herself between her open knees. She looks down at Carol with a knowing little smirk then presses a kiss to the ticklish spot on the inside of Carol's knee, making her squirm. Locking her ankles behind Jess's back, Carol pulls her down for another deep kiss, all teeth and tongues, groaning when Jess rubs against her.

With another playful grin, Jess kisses her way down Carol's body again, stops when she gets to her stomach, runs her hands down her sides, takes her time exploring every flat plane and ridge of muscle. Her tongue darts in to Carol's navel, like a promise of things to come, and Carol arches in to it.

Another string of kisses and Jess's mouth brushes over her opening, just the once, teasing, before she presses kisses to Carol's inner thighs. Carol reaches down, hands looking for Jess, finds her hands, fingers twining together. She wants Jess's mouth back on her but the feeling from her thighs is driving her wild too. Jess runs her tongue all the way along her, ending with a rough swipe at her clit and -

The bleeping of two Avengers communicators fills the apartment. When Jess pulls away, Carol grabs a pillow and screams in to it.

“We could finish up,” says Jess, head pillowed on Carol's thigh. “It'd have to be quick but -”

“No,” Carol sighs, sitting up. “We should go.”

They search hurriedly for the devices. Jess's they find in the pocket of her discarded jeans and Carol's is where she left it on the kitchen counter. Carol checks its readout.

“You want a lift to the mansion?” she asks, slipping in to her uniform.

“I would love one,” replies Jess as she pulls up her jeans. “But I'm needed at the tower.”

Carol looks over at her and sees Jess holding up the tattered remains of her top.

“Super-strength and a lack of patience are not good for my clothes,” Jess smirks. “Can I borrow a shirt?”

Carol grins, pulls Jess in to her arms and presses a quick kiss to her mouth. “Help yourself. And I'm really sorry, by the way.”

“Of course you are.” Jess sounds like she doesn't believe her in the least but still leans in for another brief kiss. And another. She's about to go for a third but Carol pushes her away gently. “Right. Avenging.”

With one final lingering kiss, the go their separate ways, Jess now wearing one of Carol's vests. As much as she likes that sight, she would much rather be back in bed, with Jess wearing nothing at all. She's not a saint; she only has so much self-restraint and walking away from that hadn't been easy. So, whatever she's been called to deal with is probably going to get punched. Really, really hard.

As long as she's back with Jess sooner rather than later, she's okay with that.

**Author's Note:**

> If you've made it this far then thank you for reading.
> 
> This fic is a lot of firsts for me: first time writing anything longer than about 5k, first time writing present tense, first time writing femslash, first time writing smut, first time- you get the idea. Of course, I didn't make it easy on myself for my first time, couldn't just write a simple Carol/Jess story, I had to throw in all the other complex stuff.
> 
> The blame for any continuity mistakes falls squarely with me, as do any Briticisms that snuck through (unless they're coming out of Jess's mouth, in which case I'm claiming they were deliberate).
> 
> Comments are always welcome.


End file.
